The Lord of Two Queens
by OUATLovr
Summary: Joffrey Baratheon is dead, and Tyrion Lannister is about to be sent to the Wall to atone for a crime he did not commit. Meanwhile, Jaime faces another lifelong sentence, in the form of young Margaery Tyrell, the new Lady of Casterly Rock.
1. If You Think This Has a Happy Ending

Warnings: Language, smut, angst, and just a touch of fluff.

Chapter 1: If you think this has a happy ending...

The gardens in King's Landing were not so lovely as the ones in Highguarden, none so well-kept as Olenna Tyrell's, but they were by far the most pleasant of settings in King's Landing. At least, they were so in Olenna Tyrell's opinion, and she did not have a very high opinion of King's Landing.

And Margaery seemed to agree with her on that, if the girl's insistence that they meet here was any indication.

Olenna picked at her cheese, gazing shrewdly at her granddaughter and gauging her reaction. Much had changed in the past days, and she knew that Margaery was not holding up so well as she allowed others to believe.

The girl picked at her food, not meeting her grandmother's eyes and barely responding when the servants asked if there was anything more they needed.

Olenna knew now that her cupbearer was under the employ of Varys, and so she sent them all away before broaching the topic for which she had summoned her granddaughter to begin with.

"It must be disappointing," Olenna muttered after a few further minutes in silence, and Margaery glanced up sharply. "To think that, two days ago, you were to be the Queen of Westeros."

Margaery shrugged, an action not altogether befitting of a royal lady, but then, Margaery had always known she did not need to keep up appearances in front of her grandmama. In fact, the woman despised such things. "I still can't believe it. The way he died...It was horrible."

Olenna took a sip of wine, wondering at the genuine emotion in her granddaughter's voice. She herself had not found the boy's death nearly painful enough, considering the little beast that he had been while he lived. In fact, she considered it a mercy, and she would know.

Poison was an art that she knew almost as well as the young Prince of Dorne, who was said to be a master at the subject. Perhaps one day he wouldn't mind discussing it with her.

"Have you seen your betrothed yet?" The Queen of Thorns asked, changing the subject abruptly.

And her granddaughter stiffened, wouldn't meet her eyes as she dipped a piece of bread in the sauces Olenna had ordered specifically because she knew they were Margaery's favorite.

"No. Have we even agreed to the match? Father tells me nothing." She let out a small, self-deprecating laugh with these words, and her grandmother felt a spark of pity.

Olenna pursed her lips in disapproval. "Oh, House Tyrell is very eager to keep roots in King's Landing, though you may rest assured that I argued against this match. It would have been more beneficial to push our luck with Tommen and make you Queen, but the moment the Lannisters took that off the table, your father was flailing for something, and now you are stuck in this horrid situation, my dear."

"Tommen is very young," Margaery tried, though her words sounded weak even to her own ears.

It was the same excuse that Tywin Lannister had given, when he had gone to Mace Tyrell with his new proposition.

Mace Tyrell, who claimed, not so very long ago, that he would not leave King's Landing until his daughter was its Queen. It was the second major decision that Olenna disagreed with her son upon. He had caved on that issue in several hours' time, and now Margaery was to be the Queen of Nothing.

Her brother Loras would have a better position than her, as the husband to Cersei Lannister, Queen Regent.

Granted that the blasted woman did not stab him in his sleep, or suffocate him with her pillow with the first week of said marriage, whenever it did take place.

"This has nothing to do with his age, my child, and make no mistake," Olenna chided. "If it were, your father would argue that your betrothed is too old. And I am sure the thought of a claw in Tommen's back that was not his own had Tywin Lannister determined to find another solution the moment Joffrey started choking."

"Grandmother!" Margaery near-yelled, though Olenna reflected that her daughter should not have been at all surprised by her grandmother's audacity, not so late in the game.

"At any rate, you came to King's Landing to marry the King and now find yourself saddled with a crippled Kingslayer, rumored to have spawned the very boy you were to have married." Olenna took a sip of her wine, finding it bitter; but then, everything in King's Landing was.

She would be glad to return to Highgarden soon, though she would regret leaving Margaery here.

"You shouldn't pay attention to such vile rumors, Grandmother," Margaery muttered softly, glancing down at her plate with a far-aaway expression. "They do not always make a man."

Ah, yes, how thoughtless of her. The rumors surrounding Renly Baratheon had not been true; well, all but one. And Loras had loved him, if what he confided in Olenna was any indication.

All the rumors regarding Joffrey were true, and if he was truly a Lannister, than Olenna could only assume that the ones regarding Ser Jaime Lannister were true, as well.

Not that it mattered. The Lannisters were so wicked that she doubted these dark rumors could make them appear any more so in the eyes of the smallfolk.

Olenna shook her head. "If they were just rumors, I wouldn't." A sigh. "I wish I could do something to rectify the situation my dear, but your pigheaded father is insisting that the marriage go through. Well, I suppose it could be worse."

Margaery looked up hopefully. "How so?" And she looked so hopeful in that moment that Olenna almost regretted her jape. Almost.

"You could be marrying his brother the Imp, like the last poor girl the Lannisters wished to dispose of without any unnecessary bloodshed. Fortunately, that isn't a possibility now," she tried to sound amused by the prospect, but even so, could not bring herself to tease further with the fate of the Imp hanging over her head.

"Grandmother!" Margaery admonished, scandalized, but she couldn't hide the slight curve of her lip at the words.

Olenna laughed, a loud, deep-throated sound, before her expression turned once again sympathetic.

"Third husband, and all with some defect or another. I wasn't originally meant to marry your grandfather Luthor, you know. He was engaged to my sister, your great-aunt Viola. I was to be given to some Targaryen or other. Marrying a Targaryen was all the rage back then."

Margaery gave a small smile at that.

"But the moment I saw my intended, with his twitchy little ferret's face and ludicrous silver hair, I knew he wouldn't do. So the evening before Luthor was to propose to my sister, I got _lost_ on my way back from my embroidery lesson and happened upon his chamber. How _absentminded_ of me."

Margaery snorted.

"The following morning, Luthor never made it down the stairs to propose to my sister 'cause the boy couldn't bloody walk. And once he could, the only thing he wanted was what I'd given him the night before."

She paused, gave Margaery a meaningful look. "I was good. I was very, very good. You are even better. But your husband is not, if the rumors are true, a blushing virgin easily controlled, nor is he interested in your brother. You must sink your claws into him quickly and surely, for he's been a Lannister far longer than Joffrey. And I doubt that the Queen Regent will be pleased when she returns from her mourning to discover her brother married to the woman who was to marry her son. Of course, she is rather distracted at the moment, mourning her dear departed boy. And accusing her other brother of his murder, which he didn't commit."

"Well, he could have," Margaery pointed out.

"He could have done," Olenna agreed lightly, "but he didn't."

Margaery quirked an eyebrow, a sudden doubt creeping into her eyes. "You don't know, Grandmother."

It was almost a question.

Olenna paused, glanced around as if, for the first time in many years, she was worried that her words might be overheard. Fortunately, the servants were hanging back, trying to stay away from Lady Tyrell and her sudden temper.

"But I do know." She gave Margaery a meaningful look. "You didn't think I'd let you marry that beast, did you?"

Margaery's jaw fell open. "Wh-What? I don't understand."

The servant reappeared then, holding a jug of wine and looking rather discomfited. Of course; Olenna had yelled at him earlier.

"Shh, my dear. Don't you worry yourself about all that. You are to be married in two days' time to the Lord Commander of King's Landing, and Lord of Casterly Rock. If I were you, I would find out just what that entails. Talk to the serving girls and the other Kingsguard if you have to. I'm sure someone knows something rich about him, besides his two most famous titles of sisterfucker and Kingslayer."

Margaery groaned. "This is all happening so quickly. If I were truly the loving betrothed of Joffrey, wouldn't it look suspicious to marry me off so soon?" She glanced up hopefully.

Olenna raised a brow. "You must set aside your greivances and do what is best for Westeros," she said, feigning sympathy. "Best for your father's ego, more like."

Margaery sighed. "I can only hope that this Lannister is more tolerable than the last," she said, lifting her chin.

Olenna shrugged. "One thing is much clearer now than before," she smirked. "You and Loras are going to be brother and sister twice over now."

The girl groaned, shoulders slumping.


	2. The Wall

Chapter 2: The Wall

Ser Jaime Lannister, had he known his father would take his negotiations for Tyrion's life so seriously, would do something like this, would never have agreed to it, even if it meant sparing his brother's life so easily and quickly.

That was a lie. Unlike the rest of his family, he would see Tyrion saved from this farce of a trial if he could. And it was not just because his brother was a Lannister, as Tywin seemed to assume.

But this was ridiculous.

"Why is she not still set upon the Iron Throne?" were the first words he spoke, once informed of the decision.

Nothing else came to mind in the shock that followed his father's pronouncement, alone in his father's study.

 _Informed,_ after the decision had already been made with Mace Tyrell. He supposed the shock had yet to set in, that he was to be married off like a woman. Like Cersei had been informed of her marriage to Loras Tyrell, some time earlier.

She had stormed out of their father's study just as Jaime had answered the summons from Tywin, the both of them staring at each other with fierce intensity, the guards behind Cersei waiting awkwardly. Jaime had opened his mouth to say something, though he wasn't sure what he could say, but Cersei simply swept past him silently, returning to the solitude of her chambers, where she had been since Joffrey's death, until today.

He supposed he ought to at least be grateful his father had told him before announcing it to the rest of King's Landing, he thought rather bitterly.

He wouldn't have expected that.

Jaime had not known that agreeing to set aside his duties to the Kingsguard would make him another cattle to barter away for his father. At least, not so quickly after the death of Joffrey.

Wasn't the time after a King's death meant to be filled with mourning, not the pairing off and wedding preparations of every match imaginable?

No, this wasn't very imaginable. The girl was half his age.

Tywin shrugged, turning back to his papers dismissively. When he spoke, his words were just as steely and cool as they had been since Tyrion's birth, and Jaime knew he would get no quarter here.

"Her father was amenable enough, once he heard what the Lannisters were willing to offer," he said calmly.

Jaime snorted, not sure whether to laugh or cry, but as neither sounded particularly wise in front of his father, he settled for sarcasm, usually Tyrion's weapon of choice. "Yes, I am sure the prospect of a knight disgracefully leaving the Kingsguard because he is crippled, a liege lord rather than the King of Westeros, was so much more enticing."

His father shot him a look. "You are my firstborn son, and the heir to Casterly Rock. It is not so disagreeable a match for a House trying to become the greatest in the land. Tommen is very young to be looking for a bride at this time, but when he does, the Tyrells are assured that he will set his gaze upon Alla Tyrell, when she is a lady flowered."

Jaime tried to think if he could remember this girl, for he had a vague recollection of her being with Lady Margaery's party when she arrived in King's Landing, but he could only picture his new bride to be, and, for reasons that escaped him, saw Sansa Stark's terrified face in his mind's eye, on Margaery's body. Or worse, Myrcella's.

Tywin glanced back down at his paperwork, in seeming dismissal. "If you have a problem with the girl, speak plainly. This union will only serve to bring the Tyrells closer, and to keep them under check. They are only agreeing to it because they know that we will not give up Tommen now, and do not want to go back to Highgarden empty handed."

Jaime sighed, running his hand through blond hair before muttering, "None at all."

He knew from Cersei's earlier fit that doing so would not produce results.

He supposed that his father was being so agreeable today, even allowing him his mullish complaints, for the simple reason that Jaime was suddenly his favorite child again.

The golden son.

Tyrion was to be sent to the Wall to take up the Black, and their father was angry at Cersei for some reason or another. Had been angry with her ever since she consented to let Ned Stark's head roll, actually.

Jaime was just where his father had always wanted him; his pawn, in line to inherit Casterly Rock, and no longer sworn to the Kingsguard.

He wanted to rail against this, wanted to protest that, while he had imagined he would marry some highborn lady, he had not thought it would be Margaery Tyrell. By the Seven, she had been promised to his...to Joffrey.

She was of a similar age to Sansa, and he wanted to point that out, to mention the similarities between them and the unholy marriage of the wolf girl and his brother.

Instead, he asked, "When is the wedding?" in a clipped, slightly strained voice that finally made his father look up from his paperwork.

"Two weeks' time," Tywin muttered.

"Two weeks?" Jaime hissed. "The King is not yet in his grave." Not that it mattered to Tywin in the least, he supposed, nor, indeed, to the majority of King's Landing, save the smallfolk who did not know their king.

"And this will serve to remind the people that King's Landing is still as strong as ever, that we will not be defeated because an Imp killed our King. You will marry the girl, Jaime, and this is the last I shall hear of your complaints. Is that understood, or will my guards have to escort you out in the same disgraceful manner as they did your sister?"

Jaime ground his teeth together. "It's understood, Father."

But Tywin's attention was already arrested by his newest piece of parchment, and he did not look up as Jaime swept from the room, to put away his Kingsguard uniform for the last time.

He would, of course, be keeping the Valyrian sword, and he'd kill any man with it one-handed as easily as two who told him differently.

He was itching for a good fight.

* * *

Cersei had barricaded herself in her rooms, after that conversation with their father, though, as Jaime had understood, she had been barricaded in them before Tywin had insisted on her "growing up" and coming to see him, as was her duty as a daughter, and as the Queen Regent, rather than him going to the trouble of finding her.

She was mourning her son, as well as pouting over their father's newest orders, and Jaime could not find it within himself to blame her, for leaving Westeros with a child as her king, and without a stable leader but for their father.

Her son was dead.

Their son.

She would see no one, again, not even her servants, and so Jaime knew he did not have a hope of getting inside to see her, when their father had undoubtedly enlightened Cersei of his plans for Jaime, as well as his plans for her, even with wine cask in his hands.

She seemed to enjoy wine almost as much as Tyrion these days, if not more so, yet Jaime would not leave it in the hands of her guards to deliver to her when she did eventually reopen the door.

And so it was that he found himself wandering down to the dungeons, rather than the Queen Regent's chambers.

He didn't, at first, know what led his feet in that direction, didn't really have words for his brother after everything that had happened, and doubted Tyrion would want to hear his words now, when he was still so angry about what he had done _for_ Tyrion, when he was to be shipped off to Castle Black in the morning.

But he went down to the dungeons anyway, taking along with him a parting gift for his brother, passing by the guards with a stern look and ordering them to let him in to see the Imp. Evidently, this was not too great a hardship, nor something his father had forbidden, and Jaime felt a bit silly when they opened the door with a small wooden key.

"I suppose you're going to ask me if I did it," Tyrion said tiredly, facing the wall of his dungeon cell and looking so pathetic that Jaime almost regretted bringing the wine.

He certainly didn't want to drown in sorrows tonight.

"I didn't ask that when I got Father to spare you," he said easily, stepping into the musty cell and wrinkling his nose comically.

Tyrion glanced up sharply then, body spinning at the sight of his brother, and Jaime was dismayed to notice how much thinner his brother had become.

He should have checked on him down here, sooner.

"Jaime," Tyrion breathed. He sounded so surprised that Jaime was almost hurt. "You came."

Jaime forced a smile, holding up the bottle of wine even as the door to the cell slammed shut behind him, taking the awful risk of letting the guards see it. Last he'd heard, Cersei had ordered no wine to be brought down to her...to the Imp, as she'd called him. That was, of course, before she shut herself away after the trial.

He felt like a fool. Here he'd been, bemoaning his new existence as the Heir to Casterly Rock, while his brother languished away in a dungeon cell, awaiting his trip to the Wall.

"Hmm. Most everyone else coming to see me simply wants to know whether or not I actually killed the little bastard," Tyrion muttered, licking his lips at the sight of the wine, and Jaime flinched at the harsh words.

If he noticed, Tyrion hardly seemed apologetic.

"Well, I couldn't pass up a good opportunity to drink Dornish wine," Jaime said, when he finally had himself under control. He held out the cask, and Tyrion scrambled forward to take it. "A gift from Oberyn Martell. Evidently he thinks you'll need it, at the Wall."

Tyrion took two long gulps, divesting the bottle of most of the wine inside, and Jaime was almost disappointed at the sight, having wanted to try it himself, but he said nothing.

Then he turned his gaze upon Jaime, face suddenly so serious in that moment, Jaime hardly recognized him.

"You told me before the trial to trust you, and I did," Tyrion said, then shrugged. "I didn't believe for a moment that our _compassionate_ father wouldn't see me dead anyway, but I did." He paused, fixing Jaime with that look again, and Jaime was tempted to shift on his feet like a nervous child. "What did you do?"

Jaime chuckled, sinking down onto the filthy dungeon floor and wondering if this was the same cell where they kept Ned Stark before they chopped off his head.

Before Joffrey chopped off his head.

"Who says I did anything?" he asked, wincing at the lie that rings through the windowless room.

Once again, Tyrion shrugged one shoulder. "Cersei was livid. It gave me great satisfaction to be dragged away at the same time that she was."

Jaime didn't know how to respond to that, so he ignored it. "I...made a deal with Father." At his brother's questioning look, he stiffened. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with, brother. Just don't let him change his mind before you've left King's Landing."

"What deal?" Tyrion demanded. And Jaime had never been able to keep a secret from his brother, so he told him everything in the next moment, before he could regret doing so.

When he finished, he let out a long sigh and hoped that all of his disappointment did not show on his face. He didn't want Tyrion carrying that weight all of the way to Castle Black, frustrated though he might have been by the way things had turned out.

"So, my siblings are to be married off to the Tyrells and I sent to the Wall," Tyrion mused, lips twitching. "I suppose there is some small comfort in the fact that Cersei will be just as miserable as I, for a time. Before she thinks up some new way of killing her husband without being caught for it."

Jaime glared at him.

Tyrion flashed a grin. "Sorry, not helping, am I? Then again, I'm the one to be sent to the Wall. You're marrying a pretty girl and settling down as father's perfect, golden son, once more." And if he sounded bitter at that, it did not undermine his humor at the look on Jaime's face.

"You had better enjoy every last day at the Wall," Jaime muttered under his breath, and Tyrion's grin only grew at these words.

"You should at least try your blushing bride out, before you cast her off as useless," Tyrion teased then, taking another long gulp of the wine. "She seems pretty enough."

Jaime let out a low growl. "She was married to my...nephew," he ground out, the word sounding awkward on his tongue, and Tyrion merely gave him a look, somehow both reproachful and sympathetic at the same time.

"And I was married to Sansa Stark, the girl he might have married. And now Joffrey is dead, and Margaery Tyrell is yet a maiden," he said calmly. "You have to do your duty to the Lannister name, after all, now that I'm out of the way and Father has you right where he wants you." He smirked. "Besides, she was also married to Renly Baratheon, and Joffrey didn't seem much to care that his uncle'd had her first."

Jaime stood up, and Tyrion's eyes widened at the look on his face, before his own schooled into an expression almost penitent. "Sorry, that was rather rude of me," he said calmly. "Come back."

And Jaime sighed, because he knew that getting angry with Tyrion over this wouldn't help. Tyrion would have gladly been executed for this, if it meant he got to deliver his final 'fuck you' to their father and sister, rather than taking the Black, but Jaime intended for him to do that by living when they both so ardently wanted him dead.

Of course, not everyone had Tyrion's mindset. At the time, Jaime had only been thinking of saving his brother from a gruesome fate.

No, this mess was one born of Jaime's own making, and now he must deal with it.

A Lannister always paid their debts, after all, and Jaime's marriage to Maragery Tyrell and resignation from the Kingsguard was Tywin Lannister's price for Tyrion's life.

He supposed, in that light, it was a rather small price to pay, and yet, to Jaime, it was everything.

Marriage.

He could remember the first few weeks after Cersei's marriage to Robert Baratheon. She had been so excited, in the beginning, not taking any heed to Jaime's terror at being so separated from his beloved twin, with a bond that not even he could cut with a sword, and Jaime had forced himself to smile and pretend to be happy for her, as well.

And then Robert Baratheon had turned out as a drunk and a fool and most certainly not Rhaegar Targaryan, and Jaime had been guiltily relieved, for it meant that he still had his sister, the other half of his soul, as Cersei used to call the two of them.

He had never really paid attention to her pretty words, her insistence that, because they were born of the same womb in the same time, they were meant for each other, body and soul.

He had only known that he loved her, in a different way than he knew brothers usually loved their sisters, and that she loved him back, no matter who her real husband was, and that was enough.

And he could remember their vows to each other, when they were younger, just before Joffrey's conception, when Cersei pledged herself to him and he to her, for in truth he had known no other but her, and she none but him and Robert.

Yes, that was enough for the two of them. Until it wasn't.

And now Jaime was the one being married off, and, worse, he wasn't even attempting to fight it.

He glanced down at his hand and sighed.

He wasn't certain he was capable of fighting anything anymore, despite all of Tyrion's (and, rather more reluctantly, Bronn's) words of encouragement on the subject.

"-aime?"

He glanced up at the sound of his brother's voice, the concerned look in his eyes.

"You were a long way off," Tyrion observed. "Remember, I am the god of tits and wine, not you."

And Jaime could not help but laugh at that, a hoarse, bitter sound, as he remembered his brother's wedding, and realized that he was not so bad off as Tyrion, in all of this.

"You'll be all right," he found himself saying finally, out of the need to say something, to reassure himself if not his brother.

Tyrion's eyes softened at the genuine concern in Jaime's voice. "Of course I'll be all right," he said, rather arrogantly. "I just told you, I'm the god of tits and wine. A few white walkers aren't going to be able to get rid of me, any more than our father has been able to for the last...oh, since I was born."

Jaime snorted. "Well, I suppose that's true."

"And besides," Tyrion went on, eyes twinkling with mirth, "I'll get to piss off the edge of the world for the second time in my life."

* * *

The guards came hours later, after Jaime and Tyrion had spoken of things that they hadn't thought of for years, decades even; of Cersei's attempts to dress as her brother so that she could go out and spar with him, of their father's anger when he found out, of swimming in the sea when they were children, of whores Tyrion had had, and, most of all, of Joanna.

But never politics, and very little of what was going on outside this dungeon cell in the present time.

And somehow they laughed at the old tales, and somehow Jaime felt tears stinging his eyes that were not from the fact that this was the last night he would spend with his brother.

Tyrion was the sort of fellow that Jaime felt he could always have told his secrets to, even if they were not brothers. He was witty, but, when he wanted, he could listen, and there were very few people in the world who _listened_ to Jaime Lannister.

Jaime hadn't even realized how quickly the time had flown by until he was yawning and the guards were banging on the door.

"It's morning," he said, blinking stupidly, and Tyrion chuckled at his expression.

"Why, Jaime, and here I thought you were a knight, able to withstand whatever difficulties, even one night's missed sleep."

Jaime rubbed his eyes. "Old age is finally catching up to me." And, now that he thought about it, a rather stinging headache. He supposed this was from all of the wine.

Tyrion coughed discreetly. "I'm sure your future wife will be glad to hear it."

The guards banged on the door again, and Tyrion shouted something at them that Jaime was too tired to hear, but that was likely just as unsavory as the expression that his brother's face had morphed into.

Then the door was opening, and the guards' faces were set in granite as they stepped forward and grabbed Tyrion, pulling him to his feet. The empty wine cask somehow still in his hands fell to the ground, but Jaime didn't bother to pick it up as he too stood.

One of the guards, and Jaime thought he recognized the man as Ser Meryn, stepped forward, almost menacingly, and Jaime reached instinctively for the sword still hung loosely at his waist.

"My lord," Meryn muttered, the words clearly coming with some difficulty after years of Jaime being part of the Kingsguard, "Lord Tywin has requested that you not be present when the traitor leaves King's Landing."

Jaime huffed. "Of course he has. Wouldn't want us disgracing the family name by recognizing a known traitor, after all."

He glanced at Tyrion, perhaps to convey his apologies, although they had done their farewells here in this room well enough compared to what it might be like to say goodbye in front of one thousand people. But then he saw the look on Tyrion's face, the sad resignation there, and simply...couldn't.

"Well, my lord father can find someone else to play the puppet for today," he said coldly, and Tyrion's eyes widened at the words. "I'm already tired of it."

He wondered if Tyrion's rebellious nature was indeed catching.

* * *

His intended stood in the crowd beside the rest of House Tyrell, watching with an almost vacant expression on her face as she squeezed her brother Loras' hand, and, if he had not seen enough proof of Loras Tyrell's...predisposition on the sparring fields, he would have believed the foully spread rumors (likely by his own sister) that Margaery and her brother were just as close as he and Cersei were.

She was a pretty thing, he supposed, but then, Jaime had never had a true eye for beauty, unless his sister was involved.

Cersei did not come to see Tyrion out of King's Landing, but then, Jaime had not truly been expecting her to do else. She was furious, he had been told by his own father, that Tyrion had been allowed to live at all, and Tywin had thankfully refrained from mentioning that this was Jaime's doing.

He did not know what he would do, if both of his siblings were estranged from him forever.

But Tywin Lannister was there, still standing as cold and imposing as ever, beside their new young king.

Tommen.

Jaime had not realized how young the boy was until now, dwarfed as he was next to the Hand of the King, and looking over the proceedings as if he wasn't certain whether he was supposed to look angry with Tyrion or cry that his nuncle was leaving.

Jaime shared the sentiment wholeheartedly.

"I suppose this is goodbye then," Tyrion muttered, glancing almost nervously at the burly Lannister guards that were to escort him to the Wall.

Jaime supposed that it was better than being escorted by Tyrell guards, for then there would be no chance of Tyrion making it alive, with the glare Mace Tyrell was sending, "the Imp."

All of King's Landing had heard his righteous fury at the fact that Margaery and Joffrey had been drinking out of the same cup throughout the wedding, at the fact that Margaery could have been killed, as well.

Jaime was still trying to figure that one out, himself, with the sort of numb detachedness of a Kingsguard, his mind vindictively reminding him that he was one no longer, that his one relation to Joffrey had been...

And besides, his father had made him a promise, and even if there were few in the world who thought Lannister promises to be in high standing, expect perhaps the Lannisters themselves, Jaime knew his father would see it done, if only to keep his new heir at Casterly Rock. And Cersei had been holed a way too long to have paid the guards to kill Tyrion along the way.

Jaime paused before getting down on one knee and pulling his brother into a soft embrace, ignoring the disapproving scowl on Tywin's face, or the shocked sounds of their rather large audience.

He'd heard from Bronn, of all people, that there were some wondering whether Jaime Lannister's retirement from the Kingsguard, so quickly after the King's death, was because he'd had a hand in killing him, along with the Imp, though there were none brave enough to voice these concerns to Lord Tywin.

It wouldn't be the first time a Lannister son had killed the King, after all.

Tyrion leaned into the touch, a reluctant smile on his lips even as Jaime leaned down and kissed him on the greasy, curly fringe of his forehead. "Farewell, little brother."

Tywin cleared his throat behind them, and Jaime would have shot the man a murderous look if he thought he could get away with such behavior in public without embarrassing himself further.

Instead, he stood to his feet and took his place by his father. And as he watched the guards come forward to escort Tyrion away, he could not help feeling that he had not, as he thought, saved Tyrion's life, but rather betrayed him instead, though he could not have said why.

"Jaime." Tyrion's eyes were soft, understanding, even as he stepped forward to join his escort. "Thank you. For my life."

Jaime shrugged, flushing despite himself. "Get going, before they leave without you," he muttered, but Tyrion only smiled at the words.


	3. His Lady Wife

Chapter 3: His Lady Wife

The days after Tyrion's departure from King's Landing passed by slowly, time seeming to freeze as Jaime wandered through King's Landing and wondered what in the seven hells people who weren't Kingsguard did in this place.

He sometimes managed to convince Bronn to spar with him, while he awaited his own marriage, though he suspected the man did this more out of pity for him than because he was truly as bored and battle hungry as Jaime.

There had been no tourneys, not since the announcement of Margaery's and Joffrey's engagement, and Jaime was still a prisoner in the wild North at that point, and there were none said to be in the making.

The smallfolk were not even rioting, though these days they observed any nobles that passed by them with a solemnity that made Jaime rather nervous.

Apparently, Joffrey had somehow managed to endear himself to the smallfolk of King's Landing before his death.

Jaime was having a rather hard time imagining how.

He should have been preparing for his wedding, Tywin would chastise him, every time he managed to corner Jaime on a return from one of these visits, but it became rather halfhearted after a time. Evidently, the Tyrells had the matter well in hand.

All Jaime need do, when the time came, was show up and throw his cloak of protection over Margaery Tyrell's shoulders, and attempt not to become as drunk as Tyrion during the wedding feast.

Or so he told himself, for the thought of doing anything else on their wedding night was almost as troubling as the thought that Tyrion might not make it to Castle Black alive, that all this would be for nothing.

* * *

His fiancée desired a meeting with him.

Jaime was not sure what was more amusing about that, that his young bride to be actually _wished_ to speak with him, or that _she_ was summoning _him_ , and not the other way around.

He knew he should have spoken to her before this, should have sent her some sort of message about how happy he was that they were to be wed.

Jaime Lannister was not a good liar. He had only ever lied about two things in his life, and those not entirely convincingly, if Brienne had believed him about why he'd slain the Mad King, and the rest of Westeros at least suspected that he was fucking his sister, and she carrying his children rather than Robert Baratheon's.

He did not want to lie to his wife, however, when surely, she was just as distraught about this as he.

Still, he answered the summons, meeting her in the gardens with a gaggle of her ladies, one of whom must have been Alla Tyrell, the new girl slated to be Queen, even if there was some time til all that.

They were children, just as he had suspected. Girls, young as he had been when he first entered the Kingsguard, some of them younger, and Margaery only a few years older than Joffrey.

Joffrey.

If she had any grief for the fate of her late husband, his fiancée hid it well, wearing soft, blue robes that rendered very little to the imagination and did not mourn the late King, as Cersei's clothes no doubt did, where she was hidden away in mourning for...their son.

He wished now that he still wore the uniform of the Kingsguard, that the white and gold colors might hide his own grief.

"Ah, Ser Jaime," Margaery greeted, with a dazzling smile. "I am glad that you recieved my invitation. My ladies and I wished to have a luncheon in the gardens, and I thought this a perfect opportunity to further our acquaitance, as we are to be married so soon."

Jaime dipped his head. "I am pleased you thought of me, my lady," he said, because it was the polite response, and the ladies behind them giggled.

Margaery sent them a scorching look, before turning her smile back to Jaime. "Margaery, please," she said, her voice sweet as honey, and Jaime found himself nodding in agreement.

Margaery took his arm before he extended it, and, as she brushed against him while simultaneously pulling him in the direction of the water gardens, her breasts scraping alongside his arm, he could not help but think of Cersei, that this Tyrell girl was just as bold in her wishes as Cersei had once been, as she was now.

He learned two things that afternoon, during the entirely too lovely feast with his soon-to-be wife and all of her ladies, though those sat a respectful distance back so that they might be alone.

Margaery Tyrell loved to talk, to be listened to, and she was most certainly not a little girl in body, if the way her large, rounded breasts swished against him every few minutes during their walk, herself seemingly oblivous to this fact, or otherwise doing so purposely, which he strongly suspected, was any indication.

"I wanted to speak with you before we were wed," Margaery said seriously, giving him a small smile. "So many couples never even meet before they are wed, and I, for one, would not wish to be one of those."

Jaime nodded. "Lady...Margaery," he corrected himself, "I am afraid that I am rather poor company, these days."

Her smile slowly faded, and she patted his arm consolingly. "The death of King Joffrey affected us all," she said, voice once again serene and too wise for her years, great as they were from his own. "No one would blame you for mourning your own blood."

Jaime stiffened at those words, at the sympathetic smile she gave him, but forced himself to smile back, the action tugging at the corners of his mouth as if the skin there had not been used in some time.

"Nor would they blame me for mourning the man I never had the opportunity to truly call myself a wife to," Margaery said softly.

"Indeed," Jaime said calmly, half-wondering whether she was actually referring to Joffrey, or to Renly. Surely she knew of her first husband's predisposition toward men, and yet he could not imagine that her words were meant for the second.

When they finally came to a stop at the small gazebo overlooking the Sea, Jaime was glad to be sitting, if only because Margaery had reached for his crippled arm while they walked, and he did not like the thought of her so close to it.

He undid his scabbard, letting the Valaryian steel sit on the table beside them as the ladies set out the cheese, fruits, and bread they had been carrying.

"Do you carry that sword with you everywhere you go, Ser Jaime?" Margaery asked, and he could swear she sounded amused.

"My lady, if I am to call you Margaery, then you must call me Jaime," he said, reproachfully, though somewhat amused. "After all, I am a knight of the Kingsguard no longer, and no longer deserving of the title."

Margaery frowned. "I am sorry," she said finally, looking down at her soft white hands before reaching for the fruit.

Jaime swallowed. "It was not your doing," he said, finally, realizing that he did not want this girl, unwilling mate or not, to fear him.

She smiled then, as she always seemed to be doing. "Will you miss it? Life as a Kingsguard? It must have been exciting, surely."

Jaime pondered that for a moment. "I swore an oath to protect the King, whomever he may be, until the end of my days. It was exciting at times, but it was mostly following the King around to wherever took his fancy and pretending to be interested while looking out for asassins."

Margaery paled at that. "How many assassins have you had to fend off for the King?" she asked sweetly.

It was Jaime's turn to pale, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. "This is a lovely spot for a luncheon," he said finally, voice scratchy. "I am surprised that you were able to get it to yourself."

Margaery let loose a small laugh at that, somehow still managing to make it sound graceful and soft. "Highgarden is so named for a reason, Jaime, and I do not wish to forget my home, even as I make a new one with you."

He cleared his throat uncomfortably at that, unsure how to respond.

"Besides, my grandmama is quite insistent in what she wants, and I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to impose after that," she said, seeming to note his discomfort. "I love the serenity of these gardens, cut off from the politics and backstabbing of King's Landing, just as I loved the gardens back home for the same reason."

Jaime nodded, unable to argue with that. It was what attracted him to the sparring fields, rather than the gardens, that he could avoid the Court for a little while longer.

He glanced down at the golden hand, where his swordhand used to be, and realized the futility in such things.

"You are...younger than I imagined you would be," Margaery ventured then, almost nervously, and blushed prettily when Jaime glanced up at the words.

"Am I?" he asked, unable to keep the teasing out of his voice, no matter how awkward their situation. "Would you prefer me to grow a beard of white and return for our wedding then?"

Margaery laughed; it sounded like the trilling of a harp. "I think perhaps I would prefer you without such dignities, my love," she said, and he stiffened at the words.

 _My love_.

Where a moment ago, this had been harmless, he had convinced himself that he was able to do this, to harmlessly flirt with this woman who would soon enough be his wife, able to live with her despite everything, so long as he did not judge her before he even knew her, those two words brought that small world crashing down.

My love. He had heard her, her clear voice ringing out in the awkwardness that had been his nephew's ( _son's_ ) wedding feast, while he grew angry over an imagined slight and she perhaps sought to calm him, not yet having realized that nothing could.

It hadn't worked of course, but just the knowledge that she had spoken those words not a week hence, in regards to Joffrey, rather than to him, almost made Jaime sick on the slice of bread he had just eaten.

No, he had no choice in the matter, according to his father. He would marry this girl and make her the Lady of Casterly Rock, but he would never have her call him _my love_ again, not the same words she had used to speak with Joffrey.

He only had one love in his entire life, and her name was Cersei Lannister. Not Margaery Tyrell.

* * *

The second time his fiancée insisted on meeting with him, he could no more get out of it than the first.

He had a horrible feeling that she was stalking him for these opportunities to get him alone, and found, to his own surprise, that he wasn't entirely uncomfortable with the thought.

After all, one could not avoid the Sept of Baelor forever if they wished to be considered in any way pious, and Jaime had not been here since Joffrey's death, and, before that, since before he had been taken prisoner by the Starks.

"Margaery," he said, remembering not to call her 'Lady,' as she had requested, when she sidled up beside him to stare at the tomb in which lay Joffrey Baratheon, First of his Name.

She did not answer for a time, and when he finally looked over at her, it was to find her staring just as intently at the tomb as he himself had been, moments before.

And it struck him then, that perhaps Margaery Tyrell truly hadn't known a thing about Joffrey's private behavior, and that, naïve as she must have been to do so, if his own father and mother knew their son's failings so well, perhaps she truly had fancied herself in love with him.

He started to move away then, to give the girl some privacy, when she placed a hand on his arm to halt him.

"Wait, please," she said, voice unnaturally soft. And he did.

Or perhaps she was merely pleased that she didn't have to marry him.

Jaime stiffened at that, and wondered for the first time if Margaery Tyrell was marrying him because she was relieved she didn't have to marry Joffrey.

When she lifted her head once more, any traces of sorrow were gone, and she gave him that dazzling smile that she must have taken years to perfect, in Highgarden. "It is comforting, is it not? To know that, when we of the great Houses die, we shall be forever entombed where our descendants can easily find us."

"He was the King."

"Yes, yes he was," she agreed, voice even softer than his own, and yet, somehow, he still managed to hear her. "And his tomb shall forever remain here, in King's Landing, while ours shall be beneath Casterly Rock, if I understand correctly."

Jaime licked his lips, as always unsure what to say when she guided their conversations to a place that, should he say what he truly wanted, would only lead to conflict.

And he didn't want to fight with this summer rose. She was very pretty, after all, and he didn't want to see her features contort into anger, as he'd seen Cersei's do too many times to count.

Though, the more time he spent with her, the more convinced he became that Margaery Tyrell could never truly become angry.

Margaery frowned suddenly, a look entirely foreign to her features, taking his arm once more. "I hope I am not being too...forward in saying so, but I saw your farewells to your brother the day he was taken to the Wall."

Jaime couldn't withhold a smirk as they descended the steps back into the Great Hall, even as he wondered at the sudden change in topic. "Half of King's Landing saw that, much to the chagrin of my father."

"Except your sister," Margaery said, a smirk of her own on her face before Jaime met her eyes, and she quickly dropped it. "Oh, forgive me. I just...wanted to say that it moved me, your devotion toward your brother, after everything that he stood accused of. There are not many who would love their family so unconditionally, and that, my lord, was the true reason why I wanted to meet with you."

Jaime didn't have an answer for that, only the closing up of his throat at her words, and a simple nod as she smiled.

"I hope I did not offend you," he lied smoothly, like the Kingslayer used to do with every word; in truth, he did not care. He had offended enough people in his life that the offense of his wife would mean very little in that tally. "He was my brother," he said finally, in an attempt to explain himself.

Margaery nodded, sagely, her expression closed off, for once; it is the first thing she has done that Jaime truly believes to be genuine, and it catches him off guard. "Of course. No matter what my brother Loras does, I cannot but love him, and so I cannot begrudge you for doing the same." She swallowed. "After all, what will we not do for family we cannot choose?"

Jaime blinked at that. Somehow, he had forgotten, he supposed, that she had been thrust into this situation by her father, just as she had surely been thrust into marrying Joffrey.

(He could not, for the life of him, understand why a sweet-tempered girl like Margaery would agree, otherwise, though he was beginning to suspect there was more to the thorns than the roses.)

He had not been thrust into this. _He_ had chosen it.

For family.

"Indeed," he said finally, when he realized that she was waiting for it.

Margaery gave him a bright smile, gently squeezing his arm.

"I think we shall be well suited to one another," Margaery said, and if she clutched his arm a little tighter after that, he supposed he did not mind so much.

Jaime was not so sure, and yet, in some ways, he agreed.

They both understood what they wanted from life, and both, he knew, would never get it once stuck with each other.

And they both would learn, eventually, to make the best of it, though he figured that Margaery Tyrell would learn this lesson faster than he.

In fact, as she moved away from him when Ser Loras walked up to them, taking her brother's arm and waving back at Jaime as if they now shared some secret friendship, he supposed she already had.

He could respect that. Admire it, even.

* * *

He saw his fiancée twice after that, before their wedding, once only in passing in the hall, and he was grateful that he needed only to speak a few pleasant words with her, and then a second time, when he was summoned by Olenna Tyrell to speak of her granddaughter, and Margaery found them there.

Olenna Tyrell was not the rabid beast that Tyrion had described her as, demanding and callous in all of her ways, though she was both of those latter things.

She was old, though he had suspected that, and put down most of her bold words to her old age, smirking as she did so, and eating an abundance of cheese, though she did not offer him food.

"I understand that you're to be married my granddaughter," she began without preamble, the moment he stepped into the room.

Jaime nodded, not entirely sure where she was going with this. The dowry had already been fixed by Mace Tyrell and his father, and any other arrangements between the two of them.

The new Lord and Lady of Casterly Rock would not be returning there for some time, remaining in King's Landing so as to give the Tyrells a reason to do so, until she birthed an heir. After that, they would go home, and Jaime would oversee that barren rock of land until his death and his sons did so for him, if Tywin Lannister had his way.

The very thought of all of that made him quite ill.

Olenna gave him a cold smile that Jaime felt was searching through, down to his very soul before continuing. "She is a sweet girl, and I am very fond of her."

Then he understood, and wondered when he had been debased to the level of a lovesick boy, or if all people were merely children in the old crone's eyes.

"My lady, I plan on protecting your granddaughter with my life, if need be, and she will want for nothing as the Lady of Casterly Rock," he assured, as he knew he must.

Olenna Tyrell tutted, sounding annoyed. "She would have been protected by an entire Queensguard, and would have wanted for nothing as the Queen of Westeros," she told him frankly. "The only difference is that you Lannisters will now be borrowing money from us through taxes, rather than the goodwill of relations between our Queen and your King."

He raised a brow, suddenly appreciating Tyrion's negotiations with this woman. Even Tywin's. He would pay to see a debate between the two of them.

"King Joffrey," she said the name with as much distaste as she could manage without spitting out the piece of cheese in her mouth, "Was a ravenous little monster, and I've no doubt that my granddaughter would have been absolutely miserable with him, for every second that she was."

"My lady, I do not think we should speak of the dead in such a manner," Jaime said finally, when it was clear she was waiting for a response and he found that he could say nothing to dispute her words. Privately, he added to himself that he didn't think she should be saying such things merely in case Cersei overheard them, true though they might have been, loathe though he might have been to admit it.

"And why not? I speak only truth, and the dead have no complaints," Olenna said with a shrug. "Ah, but I forget, you Lannisters stick to each other like paste, even if you hate each other."

"Even so," Jaime repeated softly, and Olenna stared at him hard, somehow looking down even though she was a great deal smaller than he.

"I should hope that not all Lannisters are so...worrisome in character," Olenna said finally, her words distinctly threatening, and Jaime had to stop himself from reaching instinctively toward the hilt of his sword at the sound.

"You have nothing to fear as far as my treatment of Lady Margaery," Jaime said in calm, cultured tones. Two could play this game, even though Jaime had always admitted that he was not very good at it.

Olenna Tyrell narrowed her eyes at him, opened her mouth to respond with some choice words to this, when the door behind them swung open, effectively cutting her off.

"Grandmamma, I have the most wonderful thing to tell you-" a familiar voice broke through their silent stare down, and then Margaery burst into the room, glancing in confusion from Jaime to her grandmother.

"My lord," she said with a bright smile, the picture of decorum when they were not alone, he supposed. "I did not know that you were coming to visit, or I would have made myself presentable to you."

He gave her a tight smile. "On the contrary, my lady, your grandmother had me summoned here to speak with. Had I myself known of it, I would have given you fair warning."

And Margaery giggled, _giggled_ , and suddenly he was reminded of how very young she was, before turning to her grandmother, expression almost reproachful. "Now grandmamma, you shan't go chasing away my betrothed before we have even ben wed," she lectured, still sounding near to laughter, but it was not the awful, bitter laughter of his sister, and so Jaime listened without complaint to the lovely sound.

Olenna let out a tired hmph, and this seemed to be the end of it, for Magaery held out her arm to Jaime and winked at him. "Perhaps you would care to walk me to my chambers, my lord? I have just returned from a rather exhausting day in the gardens, and I think I shall retire early for an hour or so."

He took her arm, grateful for the chance to escape Olenna Tyrell's piercing gaze, if anything else. "I would be honored, my lady."

"Perhaps, in an hour or so, you might be troubled to share your supper with me?" Margaery asked, and he found himself nodding.

"I apologize for my grandmother," she said seriously, once they were alone in the hall. "She is fiercely protective of her Roses." She bit her lip, then looked up at him. "I hope to be so too, one day."

And then she kissed him, not the sweet, gentle kiss of a blushing maiden, but of a woman claiming the mouth of her lover, hard and possessive in the same way that Olenna Tyrell was possessive of what she considered hers.

When she pulled back, Jaime gasped for air, and his future wife gave him a devious smile before almost skipping down the hall, without so much as a goodbye.

And, once again, Jaime was rather impressed without meaning to be by her forwardness, her lack of shame.

Even Cersei, he thought, was not so bold in declaring what she wanted from those around her, unless they were servants. His sister preferred the art of subtlety, back stabbing, and threats, whereas Margaery used sweet words and soft looks to achieve what she wanted. And when Cersei wanted Jaime, it was a summons in the dead of night, or to sneak off when the King had gone off on a hunting trip, when no one would see them.

Though he knew that she was soon to be his wife and kissing her in the hall was not something that would be frowned upon, as it might have been if he were kissing Cersei, still he found something about this openness refreshing.

It felt like a betrayal to his true love, to even think such a thing. Just as his thoughts toward Brienne had been, while they were captives, though it had always seemed easier to identify those as betrayals against his lady than it was with his thoughts toward Margaery.

Jaime walked then, through the castle, wandering footsteps taking him to the place he had been planning to go all along, even if he did not truly realize it.

He stopped outside Cersei's door, staring at it without making a move to knock, and the two guards standing outside eyed him nervously, before he silenced whatever words they might have spoken with a glare.

She had barricaded herself inside, would see no one, not their father, not Jaime, not even Tommen. The servants left food outside the door and it did disappear, but Jaime was more concerned about the wine they left there, and the quantity in which that had walked past this door every day, had nearly knocked each time, and yet, he didn't.

Because every time he did, in his mind, she would open the door and her cold, dead eyes, eyes so different from the ones he had left for war, would gravitate to the fake hand she had given him. She would sneer, and turn away, and Jaime would be left with nothing.

Nothing but the knowledge that he had returned too late, and that his one love in life no longer loved him in return. Thought him a cripple, a helpless shadow of his former self.

He didn't need Cersei to tell him that. He only wished that she, his twin, his reflection, as she so often said, would be kind enough to leave it alone.

Jaime sighed, lifting the golden hand that his sister had forged for him, intent on knocking, and paused.

The guards exchanged glances, but wisely held their tongues at his antics.

He could hear nothing inside; not a sob, not a whisper. And that frightened him above all else, yet he couldn't bring himself to move.

Ser Jaime Lannister, formerly Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Kingslayer, was too frightened to knock on the door to his sister's, his lover's, chambers.

He sighed, slumped against the wall, and closed his eyes.

He imagined the guards on duty would laugh about this over drinks tonight, but could no longer find it within himself to care.


	4. The Rose and the Lion

Chapter 4: The Rose and the Lion

A/N: This is where the 'M' rating comes in. Basically the entire chapter is smut, so if you're uncomfortable with that, feel free to skip this one. Also, please, I'd love to hear your thoughts about this little story!

Their wedding was the most scandalous event in King's Landing, sans the death of King Joffrey. No one expected a union so early after the King's poisoning, especially not one in which the Lady Margaery of House Tyrell was involved.

But most agreed that it was a good idea. A way of moving on from the shock of the Purple Wedding, as it was being called. A way of, as Tywin Lannister had said, proving that King's Landing had not been, and would not be, beaten by sad events.

The money the Tyrells had put forward for the marriage of Joffrey and Margaery was now being used for the marriage of Margaery and Jaime, as most of the food from that feast remained unspoiled, as did the entertainment, and Jaime could not say that it was not as extravagant as his future wife's second marriage feast had been.

Of course, moods were slightly dampened now, and the fact that Cersei Lannister was not in attendance, and that her young son stood beside Tywin Lannister in robes of black did nothing but to cement this feeling, even as Mace Tyrell stood drunkenly from his seat to toast the new couple, and claim that they were a "reminder of happier days, and vision of the future of Westeros."

Jaime was almost glad that Cersei was not present for that speech. He could only imagine the quantity of poison she would have slipped into his drink out of petty revenge.

He had to admit, as he sat silently beside his new wife, brooding and wondering how long the torture would continue - before remembering that the bedding ceremony came next - that she was a beautiful woman, and not the girl of Sansa's age that he had mistaken her for.

She wore a dark purple scarf around her hair, pulling it back and piling it atop her head, out of sight, though the gown she wore, underneath Jaime's cloak of protection, was lovely, strewn from the purest gold and flashing in the sunlight with every movement. Her shoulders and most of her back and stomach were bare, but the golden stitching came back around her wrists and breasts, hugging her curved figure snugly.

A golden necklace adorned her, and Jaime wondered, as he stared at her, whether this was supposedly a gift from himself, or whether her brother Loras had bestowed it on her, though he didn't ask.

She didn't speak either, not for the majority of the feast, until finally, during the entertainment, which held slightly more taste than the last wedding on the green, she leaned forward and whispered to him, almost shly, though he knew from Cersei's rants about her that the girl was anything but, "You look most handsome, Ser."

Jaime took a gulp of wine before answering. "And you are...very lovely, Lady Margaery."

It was true. She was perhaps one of the most beautiful women he had ever met, though beauty did not make a woman, he knew.

Cersei was very beautiful. Brienne was not, and yet these days, he found himself preferring the company of the latter to the scalding eyes of the former, though Brienne was no longer in King's Landing.

He missed her company dearly. She might have been able to liven up King's Landing, or at the very least made him see the sense of what was going on now.

Margaery smiled, satisfied, and turned back to her food, and Jaime couldn't help the feeling of relief that spread through him, and the realization that she too seemed relieved.

He wondered at that, for she had seemed eager enough to speak with him before today.

And then he remembered that her last wedding had resulted in the death of her husband, and reached for his cup of wine unthinkingly.

He certainly did not mean to get drunk, not as Tyrion had been during his farce of a wedding to the Stark girl, and was rather glad when his father shot him a glare from across the wedding tables, the intent clear.

Jaime set down his cup, feeling like a chastised child.

The King, Little Tommen, gave his blessing in awkward, halting phrases, glancing at Tywin several times during the speech as if making sure he was saying the correct words. Bland though they were, Margaery grinned and clapped to them, and so did everyone else.

He could not imagine what had convinced her to give up her bid for the throne. What had convinced Mace Tyrell, who had vowed not to leave King's Landing until his daughter was its Queen.

He had little enough time to think on that before the call for the bedding ceremony rang out, and, this time, it was not the petulant words of a spoiled child who demanded it, but half of the wedding feast, and Margaery, face devoid of any blush, seemed willing enough to go through with the ancient tradition, even standing and smiling as the call first went up.

Jaime took a long gulp of wine before the bedding ceremony began, though, hoping that it would at least steel his nerves for the rest of the night, if there were no more wine back in their bedchambers. He did not remember much of the ceremony, only that people were removing his clothes and they were not Cersei.

It turned out that he needn't have bothered. As if anticipating the need, someone had placed a bottle on the small bedside table, and he would have been instantly drawn to it if he did not remember that Margaery Tyrell had been present at his brother's marriage to Sansa Stark.

It wouldn't do for every woman in King's Landing to believe that the Lannisters were all drunks.

When he turned around, carefully holding back a sigh as the wine flashed once more temptingly before his eyes, Margaery was pulling off the last of her dress that had not been ripped during the ceremony, and he felt his face heat at the sight of her scanty small clothes.

"You do not need to..." he started, but then remembered that she did need to, according to his father. They couldn't put this off for more than a week, and better to get it over with now than to wait. "That is...If you don't want..."

He had never had this much trouble articulating a sentence before.

Margaery smiled, taking his hand in hers. "I do not mind, Ser Jaime," she whispered. "You are a most handsome man, and I a woman. Is it not our basest instincts to do just this, and our duty as man and wife and consummate this marriage? And," her eyes perused him, and he had a strange feeling that she could already see beneath his small clothes, "I think we shall manage to take some pleasure in it, husband."

He flushed at her words, though uncertain why, until the realization hit him. Would she say the same words about him and Cersei, if she knew? That it was their basest instincts to take pleasure in such a thing, or would his pretty wife recoil at such a thought?

She did not speak of love, but of duty, and he thought he could handle that, but then she spoke of pleasure, and he realized that he had no experience pleasuring another woman but Cersei. Had never wanted to pleasure another woman but Cersei.

He needn't have worried. Margaery Tyrell was nothing if not resourceful.

He helped her from the last of her clothes, the fingers of his sole hand fumbling with them awkwardly, and he could not help but feel a spark of pity for her, and for himself, as she waited so patiently for him to do so.

She was a beautiful girl, and had perhaps spent her whole life dreaming of marrying the far off prince, perfect in every way and _young_. And instead she had been saddled with him, the crippled Kingslayer.

The clothes fell away, pooling at her feet. Purest silk.

She was very beautiful beneath the clothes as well, as he might have figured, though he had been trying desperately not to think of it until now. Her figure was that of a thin hourglass, and the childish fat he had been loathe to see on her body was gone, to his relief.

Her supple breasts bounced as she took a confident step forward, much too confident, he thought, for a blushing maid, taking hold of the laces on his trousers and beginning to untie them, and for a moment, he was too caught up in her beauty to understand what she was doing.

She was beautiful, but she was not Cersei. Where Cersei was rounded, she seemed pointy yet still curved, and where Cersei was wrinkled, her skin was still smooth.

Jaime blinked at the movement, pushing her gently back so that he could do this himself.

He supposed that such a gesture was romantic, in most cases, or that she merely wanted to get to it and did not want her crippled husband slowing them down, but Jaime's face still flushed at the thought of a woman removing his clothes for him.

Cersei had never done so for him, except to sometimes help remove his armor, as she dragged him away for a quick fuck when Robert's back was turned.

Then, the awkward silence in the room only seeming to grow, he removed his own clothes, last but not least the golden hand, setting it on the bedside table and grimacing when Margaery's eyes lowered to the stump that remained of it.

He was surprised then, when, as she lifted her eyes, he did not detect the disgust there that Cersei so often held in hers.

"Well..." he said, finally, uncomfortable in the silence and the flickering candlelight. Cersei had never been much for romance.

"We do not have to begin right away, if you..." he didn't finish the words.

He was not Robert Baratheon, after all, and, though a bit of wine buzzed through his system, he would have this be a pleasant night for her, his new wife, even if it was anything but for him.

Even if he had to envision Cersei's face just to get through it, though he'd not had to do so yet.

For the first time, he sympathized with maidens forced to marry men they disliked, or merely didn't know, suddenly feeling very much like one of them.

"I hope that I please you, my lord," Margaery said, ignoring his words, her voice soft and husky as it tittered over the candlelight. She took a bold step forward, hand reaching down between his thighs before he was even aware of what she was doing. "As you please me. I want to make this night pleasurable for you, rather than a dutiful fuck to consummate the marriage."

Jaime jerked when she said the word 'fuck,' and touched him at the same time, having not expected to hear such a vulgar word from her pretty red lips, and found himself blushing at it, rather than she.

In all honesty, he had not expected her to be so eager for the wedding night. Wondered if she would be so after tomorrow, when she was officially the Lady of Casterly Rock and realized that her husband was a crippled older man who loved his sister more than she.

But then she squeezed his manhood, and all thoughts of tomorrow were gone.

He gasped at her touch, arching upward, and Margaery gave him a cruel smile that reminded him solely of Cersei as her fingers brushed against his balls, giving them another experimental squeeze that nearly made him cry out and lose himself then and there.

He was a man, after all, and even if she was not Cersei, even if he had never lain with a woman but his sister...Tyrion. Yes, he had agreed to this for Tyrion's sake, and Cersei would never forgive him if she knew.

Might as well make the best of it.

"I...yes, you...please me very much," he lied softly, closing his eyes, and pretending that it was Cersei's hand touching him now.

Yes, if that fantasy could continue, perhaps his new wife would please him forever.

But it didn't, when, instead of continuing to masage his balls in her hand, as she had been doing, as Cersei would do, she slipped down onto her knees and took him wholly into her mouth after a single, gentle kiss.

He was taken by surprise for a moment, his half-hard cock instantly hardening at the feel of wet lips around it, and he glanced down at his new lady wife with widening eyes.

He had not expected her to do this. Indeed, he'd merely expected her to lie out on the bed and perform her duty, as he performed his, but he could not smell the scent of alcohol on her breath, and so had to assume that she simply wanted to do this.

It was a strange thought, but then her mouth was sucking softly at his manhood, and Jaime's mind was no longer much for thoughts.

He supposed that this was something most men would die for, and, indeed, as her tongue ran along his shaft, he admitted that it was one of the most pleasurable experiences he'd ever had, but he couldn't help thinking that Cersei would never degrade herself in such a way, would never get down on her knees and suck his cock, as his new bride was now doing.

And then he was unable to think of anything for much longer.

He could feel Margaery's smug smile around the rim of his cock, could feel the way she had hollowed out her cheeks and now breathed soft, cool breath onto his hot, aching member with every move of her tongue, stripping him down and making him forget, for a moment, of his beloved sister.

He couldn't think. He could only feel her, all around him, her hands still massaging his balls and inner thighs as if they had always belonged to her, not just tonight, now that he was hers in name, but since the beginning of time.

Her tongue slid down his shaft to lick off a drop of precum, and Jaime let out a whorish moan at the feeling, tangling his hand in her hair and pulling her head closer. She did not seem to mind the motion, taking to him easily and swallowing him down to the root.

She had done this before, clearly. She was good, or at least, she had brought him to the point of nearly spilling into her throat within minutes, for he had no true experience with this treatment, but he was responding better to her than he had ever done to Cersei's ministrations.

And that terrified him, for he could not decipher why.

And then her teeth grazed along the underside of his balls, and Jaime lost all feeling.

When he finally looked down at her, his eyes no longer smarting with spots of black, it was to find that Margaery was no longer on her knees, but sitting serenly on the bed, her mouth still dripping with his cum, and something about that sight, of a woman naked with his cum on her lips and in his bed, made his limp cock suddenly twitch once more.

He reached instead for the wine, where he would have rather reached for her, grabbing up the two glasses from the table beside the bed and holding one out to her.

He was surprised to find that his hands were shaking.

She took it, smiling, not the least bit perturbed, or at least, not so by appearance, that he did not yet return the favor, taking a graceful sip of wine after he poured, and giving him a gentle smile. She looked every inch a queen, and not the wife of a mere lord, not at all uncomfortable that moments before, she had been on the ground, sucking him off.

Ah yes, this girl could play the game of thrones as well as Cersei, if not even better. She had certainly learned a thing or two from her grandmother.

And then Jaime was thinking of Olenna Tyrell on his bed, naked as his young wife now was, and he gagged without meaning to, setting aside the wine quickly before any other visions could enter his head.

"Are you well, my lord?" Margaery asked coyly, shifting forward so that her breasts bounced with the small movement, and Jaime promptly forgot about Olenna Tyrell as she pressed a gentle hand to his forehead. He was tempted to close his eyes and lean into the touch, pretend that Cersei had ever been so gentle with him, but he did not.

"Our wedding ceremony was marvelous," she said finally, lips still wet, though he no longer knew if it was from his seed or from the wine. "And a great comfort, after the last."

Jaime swallowed, wondering why he was suddenly nervous, after he'd had this girl's lips wrapped around his cock and been less so.

She had not needed to do that, and, if anything, it proved that she was, in some small way, at least, attracted to him enough to do so on her own. That she would make this marriage work, even if he wasn't sure that he could.

"It was. One of the greatest weddings I've seen in King's Landing, thanks to the generosity of your family." He couldn't help but think of the marriage he'd dreamed of half his life, in the Sept of Balor, the one marriage that never had a chance to be.

"Our family now," Margaery corrected softly, placing a hand on his arm. "Everything that I have is now yours, and everything that you have is now mine, remember?"

He shuddered. "Lady Margaery..."

"Margaery, please," she interrupted, still smiling, and he wondered then if she ever stopped, but he did not think she had been smiling while Joffrey lay choking to death on the ground.

Did not think, but could not be certain.

He knew well what the rest of Westeros had thought of Joffrey Baratheon, had thought it himself multiple times, before the crushing guilt that came soon after such thoughts.

"I've been told that to lose one's virtue is...sometimes painful," he said carefully, softly, preparing her for what was to come, but more preparing himself, for he had realized now that it might be rather difficult to convince her to back down, and felt, on all accounts, the blushing virgin himself. "And I do not wish to put you through any further pain after losing my...nephew the King so soon. If you do not wish, there are ways to convince..."

Her father had insisted that this marriage be consummated immediately, and his own father had agreed, so as to ward off any rumors of the marriage so swiftly being arranged because the maiden lacked her virtue, after her engagement to first Renly and then Joffrey.

Though, judging from the way her almost predatory gaze sought his, he could not believe that she would be losing her virtue tonight.

"Nevertheless, it is a wife's duty to endure such pain on her wedding night," Margaery said, calmly, and then, "Tell me, Ser Jaime, do you enjoy riding?"

Her hand reached out then, taking his own and guiding it gently to the curve of her left breast, and Jaime needed no further guidance from there, as he kneaded the soft flesh in his hand and wondered if this would be enough.

Enough to make him forget Cersei, forget Joffrey, forget that he was no longer a member of the Kingsguard and was now his father's puppet, to the seven hells with Westeros, and fuck his bride into the next morning without a guilty conscience.

Her nipple hardened beneath his ministrations, the other following in quick succession even without his hand there, and Jaime felt his cock hardening along with them, once more, so quickly.

Perhaps this was not so bad a price to pay for his brother's life.

He nodded, the words he would say catching in his throat as he wondered at this strange turn in their topic. He could hardly focus on her words as his lips yearned to take that breast in his mouth, but he forced himself to focus on her mouth rather than his hand, to listen as she clearly expected him to.

Margaery seemed to enjoy talking almost as much as she enjoyed performing her wifely duties, and he supposed he would have to get used to that, now that she was his wife.

As she clearly did not wish this to be a marriage in name only, though he was still uncertain what more he could offer her.

"As do I, and especially so when I was a young girl. Loras and I would go riding for hours, and then return and tell my brother Willas all about it. I was fortunate to lose my maidenhead whilst on horseback one day, rather than endure pain on one of the happiest nights of my life."

He blinked at that, suppressed a groan from the feel of her beneath his touch. "I see," he said finally, when no other words would come. "My sister was...fortunate to suffer the same occurence."

Or so she had told Robert, on the night of their wedding. Even if the man was too drunk to care.

But he could not bring himself to be jealous of Renly Baratheon, of all people, or of whomever else it was who had been Margaery's first, before she came to King's Landing.

As long as he could convince himself that it had not been Joffrey, his son, then he could do his duty to her tonight without becoming ill afterwards.

And then Margaery was leaning forward, kissing him gently on the lips, and then spreading them slowly down his chin and neck, to his chest, down the planes of his stomach, and then lower, past his waistline...

Jaime heaved a groan, falling back onto the bed, now more certain than ever that Margaery Tyrell was not to lose her maidenhood tonight, and secretly rather glad of it.

"I don't want to talk about your sister while in your bed," Margaery whispered slowly against his skin, when she finally came up for air, and Jaime could only find himself nodding absently, hands tangling in her hair once more as his body hung on the edges of sweet release, his sight white around the edges. "Just as I am sure you would much rather not speak of my riding."

He paused. Guilt flushed through him for a moment, as he contemplated the fact that this would be the first woman he'd ever slept with besides Cersei, and that there would be no going back, once the deed was done.

He could refuse now. Tell her that he simply couldn't consummate the marriage, not yet, and hope that she understood.

She licked his ear.

"Then I think we should move on to the task of deflowering you, my lady," Jaime whispered hoarsely, and proceeded to do just that, any guilt he felt over betraying Cersei like this vanishing at the remembrance of the words Tyrion had told him, about Lancel Lannister and his beloved sister.

He was gentle despite Margaery's confirmation that he did not need to be, gentle despite the fact that he had never been so with his sister, for she had always encouraged him to go fast and hard, lest they be caught in their sin.

But Margaery trilled pleasantly, moaning as he took her, as he slipped into her slick heat and thrusting as slowly as he was able, so close to release, when he remembered that this was her wedding night, and he had resolved to make it memorable for his young wife.

He slowed his hips, and Margaery let out a tiny sound between a sob and a moan, and pulled herself up, capturing his lips once more. She moaned into his mouth, gripping his blond hair in the fingers of her left hand so tightly he thought it might come out when she did pull away, though he doubted that would be any time soon.

Her right hand slipped down, pulling his from where it hung at her breasts and bringing it around, and he let her guide him without a word, sliding his hand down to the curve of her buttocks and squeezing them gently.

Margaery let out a small mewl of pleasure as he thrust into her a final time, unable to hold back his release for another moment, and they both fell boneless against the bed, Jaime taking care not to land on top of his pretty wife, as his seed filled her.

When he opened his eyes, his blond head comfortably ensconced in the blankets beneath them, Margaery was smiling at him. Almost smugly, he imagined, though he could not be sure.

"Goodnight, my lord," she whispered, and then turned on her back. Within moments, he could hear her breathing level out into a deep sleep.

As for Jaime, he did not sleep for some time.

And when sleep finally claimed him, it was on the thought that perhaps Cersei was mistaken, and swift, hard passion was not so pleasurable as the sweet, slow work that Margaery had emitted from him.

But those thoughts felt too much like betrayal to his twin, and Jaime slept fitfully that night, nightmares consumed with a figure who was something between Lancel Lannister and Margaery Tyrell, a deep chasm which stood between him and Cersei, a chasm which grew larger with each passing second.


	5. Cersei

Chapter 5: Cersei

They did not fuck after that first night, for which Jaime was rather grateful. The second night, she had made several hints about doing so, which Jaime had been able to shoot down with surprising ease, claiming tiredness, and Margaery had not spoken of it since.

It was not that she had been unpleasant to fuck, for that was the farthest thing from the truth, and he had enjoyed it immensely, and thought she had, as well.

That was the problem.

Still, they slept in the same bed, and he knew it was as awkward for her as it was for him, for she often curled up against him in the night when she thought him sleeping, either unconsciously seeking his warmth or consciously trying to stay near him.

In the mornings, though, she would always be on her side of the bed, deep breathing letting him know that she still slept as he dressed for the day, and she would say nothing of the night other than to ask him if he was well rested from it, for which he was grateful.

Not all lords and ladies occupied the same bed each night, or even fucked, and after that first, he knew he could not do so in good conscience again.

Though he still had yet to determine if it was good conscience toward Cersei, or good conscience toward his young bride which stayed his hand each night.

Their days took on a routine in much the same manner that their nights had done.

If she could not have him at night, for she seemed resigned enough to wait her time, she seemed just as resolved to have his time during the day, and he didn't know if this was merely so that he would tire of her company and fuck her again, or because she truly wanted his time.

They woke in the mornings, Jaime usually earlier than her, to break the fast together, doted on by servants who had not looked at Jaime twice while he was a Kingsguard, but bowed and scraped now that he was Lord of Casterly Rock, and Margaery spoke beautifully of beautiful things.

And then, because Jaime, now a lord but not at his keep, taking care of his land, had very little to do by the way of duties and did not want to spend his days waxing poetic with the other members of Court, he spent most of his days with his young bride, wandering through the gardens as she told him of every type of rose or regaled him with the far more interesting tales of Highgarden, or going to the stables to ride, as both enjoyed it, or having a luncheon with Olenna Tyrell, who was much better company now that her granddaughter was married and seemed content enough, with no evidence of bruises on her.

On the days he was not with her, he was mostly sparring with Bronn, who made no attempt to hide his amusement at what had happened.

Jaime Lannister was a simple enough man. He loved his family, and he fought because he was good at it.

Brienne, the person with which he had spent more time in the past year than anyone in Westeros, was gone, searching for the Stark girls. Cersei would not see him, and he would never see Tyrion again. He had no family left to turn to but his father, and he would rot in the seven hells before he did that.

There was only Margaery and Tommen left, and try as he might to divide his time between them, he spent most of it with his young wife, the woman who was not flailing to run a country under Tywin's leadership.

Margaery was not just beautiful; she was witty, like Brienne, telling him all of the gossip in King's Landing while also managing to make the ancient feuds sound interesting, and describing the Sept of Balor with an excitement that couldn't have been faked. She was endowed with grace, and, whenever they entered another's company, Jaime began to notice the subtle ways in which she changed, to accommodate this new person.

At first, Jaime thought that she did the same when around him, that she was not herself, but this person she needed to be to endure Jaime's company, as she had no doubt been to endure Joffrey's.

Something about that disturbed him, that his lady wife should feel the need to act differently about him as she'd felt the need to do so around Joffrey. He did not blame her that; there were many ways to survive, after all, and this was one in which Margaery Tyrell Lannister was particularly skilled.

But he needn't have worried. She was free with him when they were alone, in the same way that she was with her ladies or her grandmother, and, though he disliked the thought that he was elevated to the same position as her maids, he was secretly glad that his wife did not fear him, and nor did she nag or pester him, as Cersei had sometimes done both while in Robert's presence.

He was particularly grateful that she did not nag him about fucking, or worse, _children_. In fact, she did not seem any more perturbed by the fact that they needed an heir to leave this place than he was, and had clearly not conceived one during their one night together, or he fancied she would have said something.

Perhaps she loved her brother as he loved Cersei, and did not want to resign herself to raising children in Casterly Rock.

He certainly didn't, not when one of his only remaining children was here.

And when they were separated, either because Olenna Tyrell wished to gossip with Margaery alone or because Tywin demanded Jaime's presence, or because he wished to spar with Bronn, he found himself _almost_ missing her company.

He found that laughable, that after one night of fucking he suddenly held Margaery's company in such high regard.

So he didn't dare fuck her again, for the quiet fear that it would grow to be more than that, if he did.

And so a week passed, and Cersei had yet to leave the solitude of her chambers, foolishly allowing Tommen to continue running the kingdom under Tywin's watchful tutelage.

Or rather, allowing Tywin to run all of Westeros, unchecked.

He occasionally summoned Jaime, when Jaime could not find the excuse to come and see Tommen himself, but these meetings were usually overshadowed by Tywin's insistence that they both learn something during this time, and Tommen rattling off words from Tywin's mouth that Jaime almost felt sick hearing.

The boy sounded like a parrot. Jaime would have almost preferred Cersei's daily squabbles with their father to this.

And then he remembered why she was not here, squabbling, and felt an almost shame for the thought.

"Have you put a child in her yet?" Tywin demanded bluntly one day after such a meeting, Tommen having gone off with his nurse but the door still swinging shut, and Jaime sucked in a breath in shock, though he supposed he should have expected such a thing from his father, at this point.

Tywin sighed. "The future of Casterly Rock depends on your ability to sire an heir," he said, as if lecturing a small child, and Jaime supposed he should have expected that, as well. "The sooner you put a son in your new wife, the sooner you can return to Casterly Rock to take up your rightful place as my heir." He glanced around distastefully. "And put this unfortunate place behind you."

"Yes, I know, Father," Jaime said with surprising calmness, through gritted teeth, and Tywin blinked at him in surprise.

"Well?"

And Jaime could remember conversations like this with Cersei, not so long ago, demanding that she get a child in her womb before Robert had her declared infertile and legitimized one of his bastards instead.

He flushed. "We're...working on it," he ground out, and it had never been so difficult to lie about his relationship with his _sister_ to their father.

Tywin narrowed his eyes, not believing his words for an instant, and Jaime was momentarily glad that he had never looked so when asking Jaime about Cersei.

"Is she not..."

"Lady Margaery is fine," Jaime snapped, before he could stop himself, and thought he saw something unfamiliar flash in his father's eyes.

It was not until his next words that Jaime recognized the sentiment.

"Very well, Jaime, I shall pester you on this matter no longer, as it clearly makes you uncomfortable," he said, his lip twitching in the barest hint of amusement, something completely foreign to his father's face. "Just remember to do your duty, while you're admiring your new wife. The Lannister line depends on it."

And Jaime sputtered and somehow managed to make it out of his father's office without looking like a complete fool.

* * *

"You know, I really do have other things to do than play swords with you, now that I've an estate an' all," Bronn said, his sword scraping from its scabbard as Jaime approached. "The least you could do is not be late."

Jaime grimaced. "My lord father felt the need to educate me on what to do with my wife." And then he was reaching for his own sword, wanting this fight badly.

Bronn snorted. "I'd think you'd know, of all people."

Jaime rolled his eyes. "Can we just get on with it?" he demanded.

Bronn smirked. "Touchy this mornin', are we?"

And then he attacked, and Jaime barely had the chance to pull his own sword up in defense before the fight began.

He was glad, after several minutes of it, that they still met at the abandoned platform by the sea, where no one would be able to observe them, for he was more distracted this morning, it seemed, than he had been since his first sparring session with Bronn. Sparring session, for, even now, he refused to call them _lessons_ , as Bronn so often did with humor. And Bronn seemed to have no compulsions about beating the shit out of him.

"She's very pretty, your new lady wife," Bronn said finally, as Jaime leaned forward and rest his hand on his knee, panting hard.

"Just get on with it," he muttered, standing then, and slashing the sword one-handed through the air. He had been getting better lately, because laziness had never befitted Jaime Lannister, and he'd been practicing in the hidden courtyard behind his and Margaery's chambers when he was not sparring with Bronn.

Bronn smirked knowingly, lunging at him before Jaime was able to bring up a suitable defense, and easily throwing him off balance.

Jaime swore under his breath, getting to his feet awkwardly with only the balance of one hand, and barely able to swing his sword around in defense before Bronn was on him again.

"Much prettier than my new lady," Bronn continued, undaunted by Jaime's poor humor today. "And half a brain to match. You should be grateful, not fucking pouting about it."

Jaime resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing the words were only mostly meant to distract him.

He pressed his advantage, or as much of an advantage as he could possibly have with only one hand, and soon enough they were both sweating and grunting as they had been before, and Jaime was glad of the silence.

And soon enough, Jaime was able to forget about Margaery, and her pretty smile and the way she made him think about Cersei, and about Cersei, holed up in her chambers, _his other half,_ refusing to see him. And about Tyrion, half way across the world and likely never to be seen by him again.

He almost gained the upper hand of the fight moments later, when he was able to shove his weight into Bronn and send him teetering perilously toward the edge of the platform, body already halfway over the water.

"Speaking of fucking," Bronn tried again, voice coming out rather weakly as Jaime held his sword against the man's neck, Bronn's own sword lying abandoned on the ground beneath them where it had slipped from his fingers.

Jaime rolled his eyes, letting up and holding out his hand for Bronn to take.

Bronn stared at it for several moments before grasping it in his own, slightly firmer hold, and it was only when he grasped it hard enough to hurt that Jaime Lannister realized his mistake.

Bronn jumped to his feet and Jaime went tumbling to the ground, cursing the sell sword under his breath.

"It's all 'bout the footing, when you've only got one hand," Bronn muttered under his breath.

Irritated, Jaime kicked out, bringing the other man down with him, and twisting onto his stomach to press his sword into the sell sword's throat in one move.

"Do you surrender?" he demanded, ignoring the startled look in the man's eyes.

And then they both heard the clapping.

He couldn't help wonder how anyone had found them here, especially after Bronn had told him that no one knew of this place.

Jaime glanced up, startled, only to find Lady Margaery standing on the rocks above them with a gaggle of her ladies, all of them clapping and looking rather excited at the fight, and most of them whispering amongst each other with flushed faces.

But Margaery met his stare and smiled coyly, and clapped.

It took him a moment to realize that his lady wife was not clapping because she was mocking him, as Cersei had the last time she'd seen him fight, but because he'd actually beaten Bronn in the fight, such as it was.

And when he sent her a smile, it was the first in a long time that felt real enough.

* * *

The day Cersei finally left her chambers, she was rumored to be in a foul mood, having had a servant whipped during the break of morning fast, and having reputedly slapped their father, for allowing Tyrion to go to the Wall rather than face execution for his crime.

Needless to say, Jaime should not have gone running after her like the lost puppy that he was, happy to know that his sister had finally left her self-imposed isolation, and wanting to catch at least a glimpse of her, if not a word.

Jaime did not manage to see her, however, until well into supper, busy as she was on her first day returned as the Queen Regent, holed up with the Small Council for much of that time, and alone with Tommen for the rest. He even cancelled his arrangements with Margaery to do so and hoping that she did not investigae whom he was going to spend his meal with instead.

He should have known that gossip spread through this castle faster than any plague had ever done, for her eyes were stormy when he met her for supper, shoulders tense even as a guard announced that Tywin would not be joining her for this meal, nor any other until she apologized for her actions.

Cersei sent the man out of the room, thrusting a goblet at his back just as Jaime entered.

"Ah, and here comes my beloved brother, a married man already," she said mockingly, and Jamie was hardpressed not to turn around and leave then.

Instead, he settled for a flinch, sinking down into one of the seats at the round supper table, and wondered what his wife's company might have been like tonight at supper, instead.

He eyed the full goblet in Cersei's hands, the cask of wine still sitting on the table, and privately thought that he should have at least gotten drunk, as she clearly was, before coming here for what would obviously be a confrontation, a moment when she forced him to declare his love for her had not faltered.

"I cannot believe you consented," Cersei hissed at him. "Days after our...my son was killed, and that little Imp went free, you wed yourself to that slathern whore from Highgarden, young enough to have been Joffrey's bride. Do you have any shame?"

Jaime flinched, not bothering to correct her about Tyrion's sentence, nor her use of a cruel name toward him, for such things had never gotten through to her in the past, and he doubted that, in her grief, they would do so now. "Father-"

"Damn father," Cersei interrupted strongly. "And damn you. I know why you did it, Jaime. Why, after years of father's pleas that you leave the Kingsguard, you did so on the night of that _Imp's_ trial."

Jaime swallowed hard, unable to deny it, and Cersei flew into a rage, standing from the dining table and moving over to the balcony as if she was suddenly afraid she would disrupt the food, where she had never been so when they were younger.

Perhaps she thought she would disrupt the wine.

"You chose _him_ , over me," Cersei whispered, voice full of hurt, and Jaime leapt to his feet, moving swiftly over to his sister and wrapping his arms around her from behind, his only hand brushing her cheek. She tensed at his touch, but did not shrug him off, and Jaime counted himself lucky for that, laying his head on her shoulder and pretending that all was as it used to be.

Yes, this was how it was supposed to be. Cersei and Jaime, their love written in the stars despite it all, safe and warm in each other's embrace, and of course he had not forgotten that, of course-

"You even smell like her," Cersei shot disgustedly, tossing his arms off of her shoulders and spinning to face him. "Your Southern whore. Tell me, Jaime, did you enjoy having her in your bed on your wedding night? Did the two of you talk about her past husbands? About me?"

Jaime's hand clenched where it rested at his side now, and he forced himself to rein in his temper.

One of them had to, if they wished to leave this confrontation still caring for each other as much as they always had.

He was a Lannister, and they were Lions for a reason.

"And what about you?" he demanded, the words tumbling out before he could stop them, and he was secretly gratified to see the stunned expression on Cersei's face at the words. "You, fucking Lancel Lannister while I was being held captive in the North, afraid for my life at every turn!"

Cersei stiffened, eyes going wide. "Who told you about that?"

And just like that, Jaime's resolve wilted. "So it is true."

Cersei's expression hardened once more, and she turned away dismissively. "That was hardly the same."

"And why not?" he called after her, grabbing her shoulder with his hand and forcing her to turn back toward him.

"I thought you were dead," Cersei whispered, voice soft and suddenly vulnerable. "I thought you were dead, and Lancel looks like you, like you did when we were children."

Jaime flinched.

"When I married Robert, I never once strayed from you," Cersei said, her eyes cold as the North. "I hated him, and loved you true. But you spent one night with that Tyrell whore and suddenly I can smell her on you like I might have smelled her on Joffrey, in another life. And every time I see you I remember that you wed her willingly, to save that...creature who killed our son and killed our mother!"

Jaime gulped. "I love you."

His sister snorted at the words, the sound resounding in the room like a slap, and he thought such would have been kinder. "But you love him, too? I can hardly stand to look at you for your betrayal."

Jaime pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand. "Is that why, or is it because I'm not your perfect twin anymore?" he finally asked, voice more tired than he could ever remembering hearing it.

Cersei's eyes softened, momentarily, as she glanced down at the golden hand that adorned his wrist, and then hardened once more. "I could have forgiven you that, had you not saved the man who killed our son."

He tried not to flinch again, to let her know how those words had hurt him. _Could have forgiven you that..._ "Cersei, I do not believe that our brother killed-"

"You disgust me!" she shouted angrily then, shoving him backward. "How could you still defend that vile creature, after everything he's done?"

"Cersei, he's our brother," Jaime tried, already knowing that he had taken up a losing battle.

"Get out." Cersei ground out, turning her back to him, and he knew better than to argue with his sister while she was in this mood. "Get out of my rooms at once, for you are no brother of mine, and nor is he!"

His jaw slackened at her words, eyes widening in shock, before he turned and stumbled away.

Jaime wondered if, all the way to the North at Castle Black, devoid of his family name, Tyrion was as miserable as he. He imagined so; he could not think of his younger brother spending the rest of his life shut away in a place without whores or wine to entertain him, just as he could not think of himself shut away in a world without Cersei.

He supposed he should feel rather guilty for those thoughts, should know deep down that they were not the same, for Jaime had only lost Cersei while Tyrion had lost everything, his entire world...

Cersei had been Jaime's entire world, once upon a time.

* * *

Jaime was not certain how much wine he had consumed by the time he made it back to his chambers. The chambers he shared with Margaery, who had, it seemed, waited up for him.

He had not been expecting that, and hung awkwardly in the doorway when he spotted her, sitting serenly on their bed, hands folded sedately in her lap.

"You were gone late, my lord," she said, voice soft and sweet, in all the ways that Cersei's voice had never been. "I was beginning to worry about you."

He moved forward boldly, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her toward him, kissing her lips with a passion he hadn't even displayed on their wedding night. She responded well, hands reaching up to grip his face as her mouth opened and he plundered it, relishing the feel of the willing woman beneath him, even as they fell back onto the bed and her hands lowered.

"I'm here now," he said, and she moaned happily into his mouth.

He was harder with her that night than he had been on the night of their wedding, hard like Cersei had always liked it, passionate and angry, rather than how he believed Margaery seemed to prefer it, soft and gentle, but she made no complaints, and moaned as often as she had the night when he first took her.

It was not until his cock was enveloped by her sweet, tight heat that Jaime felt the first flash of guilt for what he was doing, fucking this girl, his young bride, because he could not have Cersei.

It was not Margaery's fault, no more than it had been Tyrion's.

All his own, and he had learned something about being responsible for his actions over the years, loathe as he was to admit it to most people.

But it was too late to pull out by then, and, he was sure, Margaery would only take offense at him doing so, so he closed his eyes and spilled his seed dutifully, as a husband should.

Duty. This was all for duty, after all, and he did not know when he had forgotten that. When Margaery Tyrell had convinced him of anything otherwise, with her sweet lips and sweet words.

And when he climaxed inside her, Jaime bit down hard on his lower lip to keep from crying out the name of another woman, the woman he could never have in his bed like he now had Margaery, and wished that it was Margaery's name on the tip of his tongue. That would be so much easier.

The lip almost bled, and he blamed that for the water stinging at the edges of his vision, rather than the black spots of pleasure he was used to, in such a position.

That night, as Margaery curled up beneath the bed covers and fell into an easy sleep, Jaime stared at his wife for some time, the guilt still continuing to plague him.

He was not a good man. He understood that well enough, had learned to live with it over the years, as people jeered, "Kingslayer," at his back and he fucked his sister because she preferred him to her drunk of a husband, and he found whatever pleasure he did not find in Cersei's bed on a battlefield.

But he knew that he did not want to hurt this girl, his wife, by pretending that she was Cersei each time he fucked her. And he did not want her to know that he had pretended so on their wedding night, the night she had told him was the happiest of her life.

That this would somehow be crossing an irrevocable line, worse than the line he had crossed when he stabbed the Mad King in the back.

He still did not understand why she thought that, still did not know how to decipher her sweet words from the truth, but Margaery Tyrell might have been Queen, and instead she was his wife.

And yet, in both Margaery was destined to steal something from Cersei, though Jaime had no doubt of which she held more dear. And, weeks ago, along with the rest of Westeros, Jaime had thought the thing Margaery might steal to be the throne and Cersei's son.

If he did nothing else, Jaime would at least try to remember that she was not Cersei in all of the ways that meant something.

He owed Margaery this much, as his wife, for, if not for him, she would never have been so.

And a Lannister always paid their debts.


	6. The Long Game

Chapter 6: The Long Game

When she woke the next morning, the sun was already bleeding through the windows into their opulent chambers, and Margaery only groaned before covering her face with one arm in an attempt to shield from the light.

Not so opulent were these chambers, of course, as the ones that might have been hers were she Queen now, but she was determined not to mourn for a title she could no longer have. She was Lady Lannister now.

Margaery glanced to her left, where her husband, strange as the word still seemed in regards to that man, lay tangled in the sheets beside her. She blinked in surprise; in all their time together, he had always managed to wake before she.

The feel of him, the smell of him, still clung to her, and Margaery nearly blushed as she sat up slowly, pulling the sheets around her in case one of the servants entered to bring their morning break of fast, as it was later than they two usually awoke.

Everything came back to her in a bit of a rush then.

Jaime had fucked her last night. And not in the gentle way that he had on the night they were married. In the way that a Lion took what was his; hard and full of passionate, rough touches, rather than kind ones.

And Margaery had enjoyed it in a way that she had never enjoyed being with a man before.

She simply had not been expecting it.

They had not, after all, been together intimately since that first night of marital bliss, though the long days that her new husband spent with her to atone for it made it clear, at least in her mind, if not yet in his, that he wanted some sort of relationship with her, and so Margaery had not given up hope. She was a very patient woman.

She had merely been confused about why he wished to hold her at arm's length, when he so clearly had an interest in her. Whether it was simply because he did not to return to Casterly Rock and take up his position as heir, or if it was his grief over Joffrey.

Until last night, when everything had become all too clear.

Margaery sighed, falling back onto the bed; tired in a way that had nothing to do with the need for further sleep, and studied her husband.

He was not an unattractive man, for all that he seemed to think so without the use of his second hand. Margaery had heard tales enough of his charm and prettiness, and prowess in battle, growing up; far more than she'd ever heard of Joffrey Baratheon, though she had managed to keep this a secret.

Somehow, she didn't think her husband would like to hear such flattery, as his...nephew clearly had.

His blond hair clung to the sides of his head, still slicked with sweat from the night before, his chest rising and falling in slow patterns as his hands tangled tighter in the sheets.

Moving delicately, not wishing to wake him with her ministrations, Margaery leaned toward him and ran a spindly finger down the sharp contours of his chest, wondering if he'd looked so before his time as a captive; he was still rather thin, especially for a man who was now simply a lord, rather than a Kingsguard.

Jaime let out a sigh that was half of a man and moved closer to her touch, and Margaery could not help the small smile that graced her lips as, emboldened, she ran the entirety of her hand along his frame, whispering touches that she hoped he would remember, when he did indeed wake.

And as she lay beside her husband, she wondered.

Wondered what it would be like to be the woman that Jaime Lannister truly loved. To be held in his arms and to know without a doubt that he belonged to her, and her alone, loving her ardently enough to sacrifice all else for her happiness.

To be the one whose name he whispered in the dead of night, in his sleep when he thought her sleeping too, so lovingly that Margaery was almost jealous of a woman she had felt pity, and then revulsion for, for most of the time she'd known her.

She was not a fool, for all that Cersei Lannister seemed to believe her to be, a pretty thing with no mind in her head.

But nor did she truly need her husband's love.

She had proved that with her last two, who had loved her brother and making others as miserable as they could more than she, respectively.

At least she did not need to play act around Jaime, for the rest of her days, fearful that if she dropped her composure for a moment and he took note of it, her life would be just as miserable as those of the souls Joffrey so liked to torment.

Jaime was safe, and comfortable enough, and did not have many demands from his new wife, except her time.

And there was only one aspect of her life in which Margaery would be forced to pretend, which was not so very difficult.

Even still, she wondered.

Sighing, Margaery crawled from the bed and stood to her feet, stretching out like a cat before reaching for her robe, which lay abandoned on the floor.

In one way, though, would she always best Cersei Lannister.

Even if she did not possess his love, was uncertain how exactly to tear her husband's love from a woman who'd had it all his life, though she was certainly willing to try, if only for her own self-preservation, she had him.

And Cersei Lannister never would, at least never in the eyes of the law, or the Seven.

Her husband moaned then, woken from his sleep a moment later, only to stare with bleary eyes up at Margaery.

A moment later, it seemed to hit him that he lay on their bed in nothing but the sheet above him, and he sat up swiftly, reaching for his nearby tunic and pulling it on over his head.

Margaery watched in some amusement.

"Do you care to break the fast with me, my husband?" she asked with a twinkle in her eye as she stood to her feet, and, as he always did, Jaime nodded and held out his arm.

She took it, daintily, and allowed him to lead her out of their bedchambers and into the dining room, the dining room that they alone shared, where the servants had obviously been waiting some time with their meal.

He pulled out her chair for her, ever the gentleman, before sitting himself, and piling his plate with food that he seemed to hold a very little amount of interest in.

"What shall you be doing today, Jaime?" she asked, after the first few beats of silence at the table.

She had always hated silence.

He sighed. "I suppose that my lord father shall have need of me for most of the day; duties for Casterly Rock, now that I'm required to care about the place, and I was hoping for a chance to spar with Bronn again."

"Tell me about Casterly Rock," Margaery tried, in an attempt to pull her husband from his most recent gloom as he picked absently at his food, and then let out a sigh and maneuvered his hand toward his drink, letting out a frustrated sigh when his hand shook at overuse; something she'd been noticing lately, whenever he used it.

Though the golden hand was mostly useless, he could have used it for something so simple as holding a spoon, or, if he maneuvered it correctly, a cup, and yet her husband refused to do so, letting it hang awkwardly by his side.

Jaime let out a sigh and glanced up, eyes softening at the truly curious look in her eyes. "It is a...barren rock for the most part my lady, not much to tell of it."

"But you grew up there, before joining the Kingsguard," Margaery prodded.

He dipped his head in acquiescence. "Aye, and it was a pleasant enough place, for a child. It is by the Sea, so I suppose you shall not feel too uncomfortable, when we eventually retire there."

It was the first he'd spoken of doing so, of leaving this place or of children in general, and Margaery forced her face not to falter in surprise.

"I suppose then that raising a child there should be pleasant enough, then," she hinted, and Jaime wouldn't look at her at those words. "And I should enjoy being away from this place, though I shall not like the solitude, I think."

Her husband nodded thoughtfully. "Lannisport is not so very far away as the Sea, and there is almost as much to do there as there is in King's Landing, or so my sister told me."

Margaery set her jaw and forced her face into a pleasant smile at the mention of his twin. "Well, if it was fine enough for your sister, I suppose it shall be fine enough for me." And laughed at the expression on her husband's face.

* * *

"Well?" Olenna demanded, before Margaery had even taken her seat at the table. "Has he filled you with a child yet?"

Even Margaery was sometimes still embarrassed by her grandmother's words, and she blushed prettily as the serving boy left them with only two goblets of wine and some bread, and her brother Loras pretended not to leer at the boy as he walked away, while also pretending not to hear the conversation.

She had a feeling that her husband was even less enthusiastic about the thought of a child than she, though she knew the importance of making one, and quickly.

"I..."

Olenna let out a long sigh. "A lion in the battlefield, and a mouse in the bed," she muttered under her breath. "Who would have imagined it."

Margaery bit her lip. "Well, he is not so much a mouse, grandmamma," she corrected calmly, and then found herself blushing again, for it was all very well to talk about such things with Olenna Tyrell in theory, but she had the sneaking suspicion that the woman would demand more details. "Not if one judges how things went last night."

And so she did. "I am going to be leaving this hellhole and returning to Highgarden soon enough," Olenna said abruptly, and Loras snapped his gaze away from the serving boy to listen, at those words. "I would like to leave with the knowledge that my granddaughter is safe, when I go, and for that, you need to have an heir in your belly and be as far away from Cersei Lannister as possible."

"Of course," Margaery dipped her head demurely. "I don't think you have to fear on that account too much, grandmamma."

The old woman shot Loras a disparaging look, as he took a long gulp of his wine at the mention of his betrothed's name. "I hold out no hope for _your_ safety, however," she told him flatly. "Not when you're to wed and bed that woman."

"He enjoys my company, and you already made him give his word that he would protect me at all costs." Margaery lifted her nose, saving her brother at the last minute. "I think he was offended, that you did so _after_ the wedding ceremony."

Olenna huffed, clearly unimpressed. "Well, and why shouldn't I, when I had no say in what your circus jester father dreamed up, getting in to bed with the Lannisters, of all things. Worse than that matter with Renly." Her eyes narrowed. "And remember, dear, that being good company is not enough for a marriage. You were that enough with your first husband, and nothing came of it."

Margaery sighed. "I'm weary of this conversation, grandmamma, and I don't want to remember our last few days together in King's Landing as a quarrel."

The old woman laughed at that, and clapped her hands together in a way that made the serving boy, standing at the other end of the room, jump and start to move toward them before Olenna waved him impatiently back once more.

"I suppose I needn't have worried over you after all," she said finally, still smirking. "If you keep that up, you'll have the matter well in hand quickly enough." Then her gaze turned to Loras. "You, my boy, are going to find yourself crushed under the irritated looks that your beloved sends you, each time she sees you. I suggest staying out of her way as much as possible, if you do not want to end up with a knife between your ribs on your wedding night."

Margaery blinked at that. "When is it, by the way? Have they set a date?"

Olenna rolled her eyes. "Our Queen Regent claims that there is simply too much to look after to set a specific date, now that she graces the rest of Westeros with her presence, rather than that small room she stayed in for weeks. In other words, she is stalling."

Margaery tried to look reproving, but failed utterly. "She was mourning her son," she said, in a soft, far off voice.

Olenna gave her an exasperated look. "You are not helping, darling. Your poor brother is distraught at the very thought of waiting to have her, can't you see?"

Loras choked rather gracelessly on his wine at that point, and looked up.

Olenna and Margaery chuckled.

"At the very least," Margaery said, finally having a bit of news of her own to impart, "you shall have the chance to impress your...fiancée at the upcoming tourney. My husband has informed me that the Lord Hand is putting it together, to commemorate the new King. It is supposed to be a secret to all of King's Landing until the knights show up from the far reaches, but of course he told Jaime. Jaime won't be participating, of course, but any of the noble Houses can."

"Ah, Jaime, is it?" Loras couldn't help but tease.

Margaery flashed him a winning smile. "But of course. I insisted."

* * *

The Sept of Baelor, strange though it seemed with her most recent memories of that place being when Joffrey had escorted her through all of those tombs and bragged over their awful deaths, had become something of a place of refuge for Margaery, in the weeks before and after her marriage.

Jaime did not seem to find it so, not after that first time when he stood before Joffrey Baratheon's tomb and simply stared at it before she joined him there, before they were wed.

He had not been to the Sept since.

He was out sparring now, with that sell sword Bronn and Margaery was left to explore the Sept on her own, only a few odd souls milling about the place at this time of the morning.

Her grandmother had already returned to Highgarden, and Loras had no interest in the Sept, nor with the Seven, if one was to be perfectly honest on that matter.

Of course, she should have realized that she was not entirely alone.

Cersei Lannister took her arm, when she stood distracted, staring up at the tall, vaulted ceiling, and Margaery nearly jumped at the touch.

"Nervous?" Cersei asked, in a sickly sweet tone that often belied ill for the recipient. "I suppose there are things for you to be nervous about these days."

Margaery forced a grin, made herself walk alongside this woman as if she enjoyed her company, for that was what a Rose was capable of, not a Lion. "Not at all. I was only thinking what it might be like to be buried in this place, as I shall never know, now."

Cersei's sudden smile at the words made her nervous, though. "No, you shan't, shall you?"

And, for a moment, Margaery felt a bit of pity for her cousin, the girl who _would_ be marrying the King, as she almost had.

"You shall, though, of course," Margaery went on, watching a bit of the smirking glint on the woman's face fade with some satisfaction. She could not resist the idea of bringing the woman down a few notches more. "I mean, when you pass from old age, having spent many long years guiding your beloved son throughout his reign, and have lived a long and happy life by his side."

Cersei's look was entirely devoid of any humor now, and her grip on Margaery's arm almost crushing.

After a moment, she seemed to recover, for she almost bit out, "And how is your marriage with my dear brother progressing?" she glanced pointedly down at Margaery's stomach.

Margaery forced herself to flush. "Well enough. He is very..." she brought a bit more color into her cheeks and leaned forward, as if sharing a secret with a close friend, "fierce in the bedchamber. Like any lion would be, I suppose."

Cersei paled. "He..." And then she collected herself once more, and patted Margaery almost condescendingly on the arm. And Margaery forced herself to keep smiling.

"Rest assured, my sweetling, he has had plenty enough practice, to awe you so. Just because he...possesses a certain prowess in bed with you, as he ever has with every maiden he has lain with over the years, does not in any way prove a measure of devotion. Indeed, it is a lesson that it took me far too long to learn with my own husband; men's outward emotions are a fickle thing, but they do not give their hearts away so fickly as all that. I've found that, once they've done so, it is very difficult to convince them to turn their eyes elsewhere. Often an impossible task."

"Well," Margaery smiled sweetly, "I suppose that hardly matters when we are already wed, for he seems...determined to do his duty by me, and I am not so young as to be swayed by such things as love, when I have already lost Joffrey." She had the further satisfaction of seeing Cersei flinch at her words.

"I merely wish to warn you," the older woman hissed, through clenched teeth, "That family means more to him these days than finding love. I do not wish to see you suffer through the heartbreak that my marriage found me."

"But, surely, now that I am his wife, I am his family," Margaery said pleasantly, eyebrows dipping together in confusion.

Cersei smiled, almost, Margaery fancied, sympathetically.

"Ever since we were children," she said then, changing the topic of discussion abruptly, "Our father, lord Tywin, has attempted to instill in us the importance of our legacy. Of the Lannister name. I remained convinced for many years that I am the only one who ever listened to his words, for my brothers had naught between their ears when they were children, but now I think differently. I think my brother Jaime listened to them, but simply chose to interpret them differently. Interpret them as the importance of family, for I have never seen him act but in the interest of me, my father, and...the Kinslayer, the Imp. I know my brother, Jaime cares about his Lannister family, my dear, a family that has been with him since he was born. And you are merely a means of making our father happy and saving the Imp's miserable, undeserving life."

The words shouldn't have hurt. But they did.

And Margaery was instilled, in that moment, with the desperate desire to hurt her back.

"But soon...you shall be wed to my brother Loras, and we two shall be family, and, even further, _sisters_ twice over soon enough, shan't we?" Margaery asked, repeating the words she remembered offending Cersei so deeply, before. "I hope that we shall be able to confide in each other, and find comfort in each other, when that happy day comes." She tilted her head, pretending to ponder the relationships over in her head, and finally clucked her tongue. "And to think, that I shall be just as much a _sister_ to our Jaime as a _wife_ , when you and my brother Loras are wed, and you and my dear brother Loras the same. I suppose that will be quite strange."

She supposed she was laying it on rather thick, when the rumor of Cersei and Jaime's relationship was the worst kept secret in Westeros, with her words, but she could not bring herself to regret them at her _sister's_ reaction to them.

Cersei's triumphant gaze hardened into anger, and she opened her mouth to make a scathing retort, but Margaery did not give her the opportunity. Instead, with one final smile in farewell, Margaery walked away with the triumph of that small battle, a slight spring in her step as she left the woman behind in the Sept, and went to find _her_ husband.

* * *

Jaime was with his father, Lord Tywin, in the Hand of the King's chambers, where they both stood over a table filled with parchments; maps, ledgers, and the like.

Margaery had been able to find him easily enough, after returning from the Sept, and, when the guards outside Lord Tywin's chambers had attempted to keep her out, saying that Lord Tywin had instructed none answer, she laughed and said that her husband was behind that door, and she would have a word with him, if they pleased.

She supposed Cersei would have simply demanded they move past and shoved inside, anyway, but Margaery did not believe that brute force had ever granted a woman anything lasting.

Jaime and Tywin glanced up with twin expressions of surprise when she entered, exchanging glances before Lord Tywin dipped his head to her.

"Lady Margaery," he said calmly, though his eyes betrayed his annoyance at the interruption.

Jaime was giving her a strange look, clearly trying to figure out what she was doing here, and Margaery smiled prettily at him.

"I wonder, my lord," she said, turning back to Tywin, "if I might have a word alone with my husband. I promise that I would not tear him from such important prospects as our future home were it not dreadfully important, and I shall return him to you with the speed of the all of the Seven."

Tywin eyed her. "I suppose I cannot deny my son's wife that," he said calmly, but she read more into it than that.

Lord Tywin would not deny her anything short of the impossible, if she were able to put Lannister seed in her womb.

Jaime took her arm, following her out into the hall with a bemused expression; evidently, he could see no reason for her tearing him from the work of Casterly Rock, and Margaery wondered jealously, and she was not a woman to become easily jealous, whether or not Cersei had ever attempted to do so.

She would not think of Cersei.

He shut the door to Tywin's chambers silently behind him, and then Jaime turned back to her. "Whatever is the matter, my lady?" he asked, even as the guards looked on with interest.

Margaery smirked and took his hand, leading him into a room adjacent, one which just happened to stand open, and bade him shut it behind them.

The moment they were alone, Jaime turned around, opening his mouth to ask what it was that she wanted, which demanded such secrecy, and Margaery flew at him before he could, capturing his mouth with her wet, heated lips and pulling him down into a kiss.

Her husband let out a sound of surprise, one which was not entirely discontent with the situation at hand, and Margaery smiled to herself, even as her tongue pressed against his lips, pleading an entrance which he gave her quickly enough.

His hand roamed down her side, pinching and stroking, even as he continued to kiss her, and Margaery returned the favor, one had stroking his neck while the other moved downward, finally coming to a rest where it cupped her husband's manhood through his trousers, and waited.

She did not need to wait for long.

Jaime thrust up into her hand, letting out a noise which sounded suspiciously like a whine and starting to pull away from her lips. Margaery pressed her advantage, kissing him boldly and in a way that she had never truly kissed another man before. But she was in no doubt about her abilities, when, a moment later, Jaime spun them both around and shoved her back into the wall.

From far away, Margaery's body registered the painful sensation of hitting against the bare wall, and she knew later that this action would cause undue injury, but couldn't bring herself to care as she felt Jaime's cock harden beneath the cloth that separated it from her hand.

His lips abandoned her mouth then, moving down her chin and neck, and then his hand was gone from her side, reaching up to rip down the silken fabric which held her breasts, and letting them slip free.

Margaery gasped as the cool air hit her skin, but had very little time to think of this before his lips were on her, capturing her nipple in a sweet kiss that soon turned into something else, and Margaery let out a wanton moan at the feel of it, pushing her hand against his cock.

Jaime continued thrusting into her hand, panting and groaning now, and Margaery was surprised to note that she matched him, sound for sound.

And when they both came, together, Jaime with a shout, making a mess on the floor of the empty room, Margaery knew that he was irrevocably hers, even if he was also once Cersei's, and might still be.

And it was enough.

* * *

Margaery had not expected Cersei to act so swiftly, nor so cruelly. She supposed that, at any other time, she might have described the action as bold.

And if she had anticipated the price she would pay for her mocking words, she'd have never said them.

Some part of her reasoned that it could not entirely be her fault, that Cersei Lannister would never have married her brother to begin with, and the death threats that everyone from Jaime to Varys had warned him of since the moment the Tyrells had agreed to the match had never been far from her mind, though she had done her best to appear unconcerned about them.

For Loras' sake.

He was already so sensitive on the thought of death, after Renly, that she was not entirely sure that he had not acquiesced without much fight to the match for that very reason.

Jaime's large, gentle hand settled on her thigh, not provocatively, only softly, rubbing small circles over her skin through the sheer dress that she wore, after a moment's hesitation showed that she would not pull away.

They were in their chambers, after having spent hours tending to Loras before the maesters deemed it foolhardy to do so any longer; still, Mace Tyrell had demanded they continue to try, until the last gasping breath left Loras' body, and the maesters muttered that they might have done something to ease his passing, were they not trying so hard to keep him alive.

And, after, her father had sobbed over his son's prone form, and then railed at the incompetence of the maesters, and then sobbed again. Not even Tywin Lannister's whisper in his ear that they needed to clean the body would dissuade him from this.

She privately thought that they had hardly been trying, the maesters, what with Cersei Lannister standing in the corner of the room, watching with dry eyes and a suitably shocked expression, that she would lose her fiancé before a wedding date was even set.

Margaery had wandered back to the rooms she shared with her husband then in stunned silence, steps tripping gracelessly every so often. She had heard her knight walk two steps behind her during this journey, ready to catch her if she fell but not prepared to engage her in conversation while they walked.

And now they were back here, sitting on the very bed where, not so long ago, she had thought it fun to bed a _Lannister_ , forgetting that all Lions were just as deadly as Snakes.

"I'm sorry," Jaime said, thickly, the words coming out rather strained and quiet. And then he was handing her a goblet of wine, and Margaery found herself downing it in two large gulps before she could think better of doing so, on an empty stomach.

Well, perhaps not all Lions.

She handed the goblet back to him, watched out of the corner of her eye as he set it on the bedside table. "I still can hardly believe what happened," she said, softly. "One moment, he was fine, and the next..."

But she could believe what had happened, and that was the worst of all of this. Knew all too well who was responsible for this, even if there was no actual proof she could bring to bear against the woman in question.

And, by the look of shame that flashed in her husband's eyes at her words, she had a strong suspicion that he knew, as well.

He turned back to her, took in her shaking hands, and held them both in his own. She was surprised to find that his golden hand, the one that Cersei had made for him, the one that she hadn't touched since they were wed, since she could see clearly how uncomfortable anyone doing so made him, was soft enough with her own dwarfed inside it.

"Tell me what I can do for you," he said, finally, and when he looked at her, there was such pain in his eyes, though she doubted it was because of the passing of Loras Tyrell, that she sucked in her breath.

"I don't know," she said finally, the moment the realization hit her, and then came the tears.

She did not truthfully remember when she fell into Jaime's embrace, when her face pressed against his chest and he started applying sweet, gentle kisses to her hair and forehead. Somehow, despite the fact that he was a Lannister, she found them comforting.

Perhaps because he was not so much a Lannister as the rest of his vile family.

It was the first time she could remember displaying genuine, vulnerable emotion before her husband, besides the small moment in which she had let some slip, at the Sept where Joffrey was buried.

"You are a brave girl, Margaery," Jaime said finally, voice so soft she almost didn't hear the words. "To love someone so deeply, when you stand the chance of losing them."

She hiccupped. "We all stand the chance of losing everyone we love, at any moment. Such is the Game." She took a shuddering breath. "Yet still we play, and still we love."

He didn't attempt to lift her from his arms for some time, and she was glad of it. Glad of the familiar touch, for if he left her alone in this moment, she was afraid she might break.

"We are not so different, you and I," he said instead, thoughtfully, after a time.

"And now we've both lost our brothers," Margaery whispered hoarsely into his tunic, _To Cersei,_ she wanted to say, but didn't. Though, she couldn't help but think resentfully, at least Jaime's brother was still alive, if not living out a living death at the Wall.

Jaime's grip on her tightened, and she melted into the reassuring touch and pretended, for a moment, that it was her brother Loras.

That he did not now lie slain from a joust wound, the gaping hole in him where his stomach had once been, where Ser Meryn had left him grotesque and terrifying, when in life he had always been so beautiful, after one fell thrust.

That she would see her brother again, before the Stranger took her, too.

It had all passed in a daze for Margaery. Loras had asked to wear her favor, before the tourney, as he seemed rather too terrified to ask Cersei, and had turned to wink predictably at his squire before facing the joust against Ser Meryn.

No one had doubted he would win; he was, after all, becoming almost as legendary at these tourneys as Jaime had once been, and especially against an opponent like Meryn Trant.

Only he hadn't won, and here they were.

And then Jaime was pulling her up to face him. She sniffed, aware all of the sudden that she had cried on this man for some time, and was certainly not the picture of grace she always wished to look around men, but suddenly found, with his next question, that she didn't care.

"When was your last moon's blood, my lady? Was it at the usual time?" he asked, voice impossibly gentle, and she blinked, not at the impropriety of the question, but rather at the strange turn in conversation.

"I...haven't had it," Margaery heard herself say, from a long way off. "Since days before we wed."

Jaime nodded, a strange look suddenly crossing his features, and she rushed on before she could give him hope of an heir, though she still thought it a strange time to be asking after one.

"But that is not so rare a thing, and does not truly prove conception."

He flinched at that last word, as if she'd slapped him. If he was trying to make her feel better with the thought of a child to entertain her, so soon after losing her brother, he was dreadfully failing in it.

Then he shrugged. "Still, I'd say it is a good sign. Perhaps...perhaps we ought to start on our journey to Casterly Rock, in case it does." He swallowed hard. "It wouldn't hurt to be too careful, after all."

Margaery's eyes widened, and she sat up still further, gazing at her husband in surprise. "Are you sure?"

Jaime glanced down at the stump where his hand had once been, and eventually nodded. "We'll have a maester who doesn't have his hands in my sister's pockets confirm it, easily done."

And only then did she agree to it, and her husband smiled, looking almost relieved at the very thought of going to that place, and putting King's Landing behind them for a time.

The End

A/N: Well, there you have it. I've never written anything like before, but the plot bunny would not leave me alone. Actually, I was going to end this story on the last chapter, but after that last episode...I figured we all needed a bit of a pick-me-up. Though this isn't really one...Oh, well. Please leave a review!


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